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Book S^S. 



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ON THE OCKLAWAHA. 



Three Vassar Girls 



At Home 



A HOLIDAY TRIP OF THREE COLLEGE GIRLS 



THROUGH THE SOUTH AND IVEST 



LIZZIE W. CHAMP NEY 



ILLUSTRATED BY "CHAMP" AND OTHERS 




BOSTON 

ESTES AND LAURIAT, PUBLISHERS 

301-305 Washington Street 
1888 



Copyright, 1S87, 
By Estks and LaukiaTo 



All Ritrliis Reserved. 




CONTENTS. 



Chapter ^■'^^'^■ 

I. Unpicturesque America n 

II. St. Augustine 23 

III. Leaves of Palm 34 

IV. Human Nature 5° 

V. Sweet and Sour Oranges 62 

VI. The Captain's Wager and the Doctor's Revenge 76 

VII. Up the Ocklawaha 9^ 

VIII. A Camp-Meeting and a Great Emergency 107 

IX. In the Furnace ^22 

X. Crossing the Bridge ^3^ 

XI. Wild Colorado ^48 

XII. The Rockies and Salt Lake 164 

XIII. Camping on the Yellowstone ^79 

XIV. California and Arizona ^9^ 

XV. The Pueblos -215 

XVI. Taken Prisoner 226 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

On the Ocklawalia Frontispiece 

Madeleine 12 

Cleo writes to her Father 13 

A Florida Landscape •. 14 

" Fond of dress or flirtation " .... 18 

Aunt Pen and Madeleine 21 

On the Hotel Piazza, St. Augustine . . 24 

Dr. Pettyman 25 

'• I 'se gwine ress, I is " 30 

Captain Saunters 31 

An Afternoon Drive 32 

Heron 35 

Yulee Ponce . . 37 

Oriental Palm 39 

"The Critter" 42 

The Camp in the Forest 43 

Death of Turf 47 

On the Veranda 51 

Entrance to the Old Fort 53 

An Episode in the Seminole War . . 57 

One of Geronimo's Band 60 

The Old Gate, St. Augustine .... 61 

Mr. Tait and his Guests 63 

The Sour-Orange Man 64 

Old Spanish House 65 

Captain Saunters calls 67 

The Watch-Tower 69 

Flamingoes 71 

Pelicans fishing 77 

"The Critter" spins a Yarn .... 79 

The Frog and the Snipe 81 



P.\GE 

" As they drifted back by sunset " . . 85 

Her Favorite Book 86 

Cleopatra and the Captain 89 

A well-remembered Hat 93 

Floating Alligator Island 95 

A Cypress Swamp 99 

A Florida Type lor 

" Too well-to-do for exertion " .... 102 

Silver Spring in Former Times . . 103 

The Sweet-Orange Man 105 

At the Camp-Meeting 108 

" Wriggling out 'from under a mass of 

tree-roots" . in 

P'lying Squirrels 115 

The Justice of the Peace 118 

Cathedral at St. Augustine 127 

" Turning, she saw Captain Saunters " . 128 

" A sphinx in spectacles " 129 

" A tall angel stood beneath it " . . . 132 

Feeding the Chickens . ...... 137 

A Shambling Negro ....... 138 

In the Hammock 141 

The Bridge I44 

Pier of Brooklyn Bridge 146 

Gateway to the Garden of the Gods . . 149 

Columns of Red Sandstone 151 

"She has lived in Leadville ever since it 

was projected" 152 

A Colorado Savage 152 

"That 's a Redfern jacket" .... 153 

The Latest Enghsh Style IS4 



Vlll 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

A Street in Leaclville 155 

Ah Lee 159 

A Dangerous Ride 161 

Canon of the Arkansas 165 

Miss Hurlburt . .169 

The Cowboy 170 

The Minister 170 

The Senator 170 

"Long snow-sheds which protect tlie 

track" 171 

The Mormon Tabernacle 173 

Little Swedish Girl 175 

A Latler-Day Saint 176 

A Pioneer's Home 177 

Dick and his Family iSo 

Crater of '■ Old Faithfur' iSi 

The Geyser Land 184 

The Grotto 185 

" Yulee and Madeleine were both fond 

of fishing" . « 188 



P.\(,E 

A Cascade in the Yellowstone Park . . 190 

Map 192 

In the Grand Canon 194 

The Yosemite Valley 197 

One of tlie Big Trees 199 

Tranquil Mirror Lake 201 

Motlier Flanagan 203 

Grand Canon, looking East .... 204 

A Zuni Indian 206 

The Nevada Fall in the Yosemite . . 207 

Madeleine and " He-wants-to-know " . 210 

Indian Reservations 213 

A Zuni \'illage .217 

The Major 219 

A Room in the Pueblo of Acoma . . . 221 

The Interpreter 224 

Ancient Pueblo restored 227 

Mr. Hurlburt as a Prospector .... 229 

Watching a Pueblo Dance . . . 231 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



Three Vassar Girls at Home. 



CHAPTER L 




UNPICTURESQUE AMERICA. 

HE question really does not admit of argument, 
Patrick. America is the most utterly unpictu- 
resque, ?/;/romantic, ?^;2poetic, z^/^inspiring coun- 
try in the world." 

The young lady addressed as Patrick — 
Miss Cleopatra Atchison, a younger sister ofc 
Barbara Atchison, with whom many of our read- 
ers are acquainted — looked up quickly with 
some bright reply trembling on her pouting lips ; but her friend 
was not ready to listen. 

" I confess, Cleo dear," she said, " that your opinion ought to have«*r 
a showing; but I have not nearly expressed mine as yet. America 
has no background. I felt that when I was in England. We have no 
castles, cathedrals, abbeys, or history, — no knights in armor or trou- 
badours. No wonder that there is no spirit of chivalry in our modern 
life; that American men are a mere sordid drove of money-getters, 
and American women loud, shallow, and pretentious." 

" Madeleine, Madeleine," protested Patrick warmly, a spot of bright 
color burning in each cheek, " you are carrying the matter entirely 



12 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




MADELEINE. 



too far. You don't mean what you say. All American men are not 
mercenary wretches. To be particular, there is my father ; as knightly 
a heart throbs under his U. S. brass buttons as ever beat 'neath a 

coat of mail ; and you certainly do not 
include your mother in your sweeping 
category." 

Madeleine's face softened ; her mother 
was the only person whom she passion- 
ately loved. It was for her sake that 
she had relinquished her ambition to 
graduate at the head of her class, and 
was now, in the middle of her senior 
year, packing her trunks for Florida. 
Mrs. Morse was recoverinsf from an 
attack of pneumonia, and her physician 
had recommended Florida for the remainder of the winter. When 
Madeleine heard of this decision she instantly decided that it \vas her 
duty to accompany her mother. And when her father had replied 
that this was not necessary, — for though he could not leave his busi- 
ness to accompany his wife, Uncle Jonah was going to Florida on 
business, and Aunt Pen w^ould accompany them and care for the 
invalid, — Madeleine was more than ever confirmed in her decision. 

" Aunt Pen will kill mother in ten days," she explained to her 
friend. "She is the greatest talker on this continent; unless I am 
there to protect mother, her trip will do her no good." 

" And what will become of your college course .'' " asked Madeleine. 
" I shall study while I am away, and be back for the spring 
examinations. If I pass, w^ll and good ; if not, I "11 graduate next 
year. You will be valedictorian, Pat, and I shall be on hand with 
plenty of bouquets at Commencement Day. But how I shall miss 
you all next year ! I wish you would take a post-graduate course." 
Cleopatra's cheeks glowed, but she said nothing ; and yet she was 



UNPIC TURESQ UE A M ERICA . 



13 



a girl of sudden impulses, and on lesser occasions than these had been 
exuberant in her sympathy. She retired to her own room shortly 
after, and busied herself in writing a long letter to her father. 

It was a week after the announcement of Mrs. Morse's illness that 
Madeleine was to start on her Southern journey. Cleopatra had been 
full of a repressed impatience. A 
strange restlessness possessed the girl ; 
her studies were neglected, and she 
held long consultations with the Lady 
Principal. She took a lively interest 
in Madeleine's plans, reading or rather 
skimming all the books on Florida 
which the library afforded, and talk- 
ing them over with her friend, who 
persisted in not being interested in 
her proposed trip except as it was to 
affect her mother's health. 

Cleopatra spent much of her time 
during the last two days in packing 
her own trunk, much to Madeleine's 

surprise, for it lacked a week of the holidays. She was always in 
time and waiting for the distribution of letters, and there was a settled 
look of disappointment on her face after they were given out. She 
acted, in short, like a girl with a secret on her mind ; and when Made- 
leine taxed her with this she replied, " My dear, I 've two of them, and 
they are just devouring me." Then, to beat off Madeleine's inquiries, 
she launched once more into their staple discussion on the merits of 
American scenery. 

" I think our country is the most picturesque in the world," she 
said. "Just wait till I get you out among our Colorado mountains; 
if you are not more deeply moved than you ever were by any foreign 
minster, I am mistaken. And as for this Florida trip which you prc- 




CLEO WRITES TO HER FATHER. 



14 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



fess to scorn, I fancy it will waken in you an entirely new appreciation 
of your native land." 

" Perhaps so," Madeleine admitted languidly. " If we could only 
take it alone, — just you and 1 together, Pat, — and could float away in 
a canoe up some unexplored river, like Ponce de Leon, — that would 




A FLORIDA LANDSCAPE. 



be worth while; but to be dragged about by Uncle Jonah and Aunt 
Pen in a parlor car from one fashionable resort to another, with 
anxiety for mother tugging at my hcart-stiings, and the thought 
of you finishing your course triumphantly at this dear old college — 
Oh, Cleo, it is almost more than I can bear." 

Madeleine never called her friend Cleo except when profoundly 
moved; and as she buried her face in her Moral Philosophy, Cleopatra 
sprang to her side, — her secret was almost out. But at that instant 



UNPICTURESQUE AMERICA. 15 

the corridor teacher tapped at the door. " A telegram for Miss 
Atchison ! " 

Cleopatra snatched it from that admirable lady's hand, and tore 
it quite in two, in her eagerness to open the envelope. She glanced 
at only the first two words, and then, unmindful of the stupefaction 
of the gentle corridor teacher, " Glory ! " she shouted. " Madeleine, 
I 'm going too." 

"What do you mean?" asked the bewildered girl. " You are not go- 
ing to give up graduating this year; your father will never consent." 

"Yes, he will; he has. He'd rather I would stay East longer, — 
you see, he doesn't know what to do with me after I come home; and 
I w^rote him that I had a cough, — I truly have, a little one, — and tliat 
I was afraid I would n't pass, and all that, and I could n't graduate with- 
out you. Madeleine dear, we ivill finish this year, after all, for we will 
study together and recite to each other, and astonish all the professors 
and all the girls by walking right over their heads when it comes to ex- 
amination — Oh, Miss Meecher, excuse me; I did n't mean to bump 
against you ; " for in her ecstasy Cleopatra had waltzed Madeleine 
around the table, and whirled her madly against the little corridor 
teacher, who, finding that a withering glance had no effect, now retired 
with mingled dignity and expedition, while the girls paced the corridor 
with more sobriety. " That 's secret No. 2, Madeleine ; No. i you 
shall know sometime. What glorious times we will have ! " 

" I am glad you are going," Madeleine replied, much touched by 
her friend's devotion; "but you will find it very stupid." 

" No fears of that ! I '11 take my camera ; I have always wanted to 
see more of the East before I q:o home." 

" I don't believe you will find a mortal thing worth photographing. 
If we were going down the Rhine or through Switzerland, what a 
lovely album you could make ! I had a friend who illustrated " Hare's 
Walks in Rome" by in ''ying photographs of all the places men- 
tioned, and another wh ■ ' .;ok IrvinQ-'s " Tales of the Alhambra " to 



1 6 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

Granada and treated it in tlie same way; but Florida scenery is no- 
toriously flat and uninteresting. I really don't see why you have 
decided to go." 

"You are tired out, Madeleine, and the trip is sure to do you good; 
and you 've only to provide yourself with some good books to have an 
ever-open door of escape from boredom of every kind." 

"There it is again! What books shall we take? The novels are 
as bad as real people. What lias become, Pat, of the old ideals of high 
thought and noble endeavor ? Even the novels are prosaic and com- 
monplace, and we have green-grocers and restaurant clerks for heroes, 
and the silliest or most vapid of heroines." 

" It seems to me," said Cleopatra, thoughtfully, " that you misun- 
derstand the purpose of the realistic school of writers. They cannot 
intend to drag our ideals in the mire. I think they intend to show us 
the nobility and pathos, the heroism and self-sacrifice, that exist un- 
suspected right in this commonness with which we are surrounded." 

" It is well disguised, then," Madeleine replied, with something like 
a sneer. " I would never suspect our popular authors of any such 
motive, and the greatest fault which I have to find with them is that 
their characters are so aggravatingly real. They are exactly like the 
people we meet every day. Howells's women are precisely the women 
who exasperate me so much, his conversations just what one overhears 
in the street-cars and between the acts at the matinees. Oh, I am 
sick of it all, and hungry to see one really grand life, not all sham and 
hollowness ! " 

" Perhaps you will find it in Florida, Madeleine, hidden away in 
the pine barrens or in the everglades, near to Nature's heart, — a 
character like the Sir Galahad of that little anonymous novel that you 
liked so much." 

"Yes; that was a really natural, simple soul, and yet so true and 
great. There were many unusual thoughts in that book. I wonder 
who wrote it ? " 



i 



UNFICTURESQUE AMERICA. I 7 

••Some one quite unknown to fame, I Ve no doubt. It is probably a 
first attempt, and not likely to be followed up by another; for I hear 
the book is not over-successful, in spite of the send-off you gave it in 
your book review in the Miscellany." 

" I might have known that such a book would not be successful," 
Madeleine replied musingly. " Who is there to care for it in our driv- 
ing, pushing, hurrying, scurrying America.^ " The girl frowned as she 
spoke, so savagely tliat a friend who caught her glance at the end of 
the corridor wondered what she had done to offend her, and reported 
to another acquaintance that Madeleine Morse was " mad " with her, 
and she believed " that snoopy Cleopatra Atchison " had told her 
something to her disadvantage. 

Meantime the two girls continued their walk up and down the long 
corridor, chatting of their projected trip and always in the same tone, 
— Patrick light and joyous, Madeleine cavilling now at the scenery 
and now at the people of her native country. And yet the girl's 
nature was not sour or discontented. She was only undeveloped and 
inexperienced. Her soul was full of noble aspirations and high ideals ; 
her heart bursting with a craving for the beautiful in Nature, art, and, 
above all, in human life. This craving had been stimulated by a 
course of unusual study, into which she had thrown herself with high 
enthusiasm. Each vacation she had left her books unwillingl)', to be 
taken by her family to the different watering-places to meet only the 
fashionable class of city people, — women who were fond of dress or 
flirtation, dancing young men, middle-aged men whose entire exist- 
ence could be covered by a trade-dollar, and girls whom she despised 
for their frivolity. Because she had visited a number of these water- 
ing-places, she fancied that her experience was wider than it really 
was, not reflecting that at her home in New York, Saratoga, Newport, 
and Cape May she had seen only one class of people, and that a limited 
one. Her mother she excepted from her sweeping category. Mrs. 
Morse had a fine, elevated nature like her daughter's ; but maternal 



i8 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




duties had absorbed her, and 
she had laid aside all other 
aspirations to become an ex- 
cellent mother of a large 
brood of little children. She 
sympathized with her eldest 
daucrhter, but never tried to 
prove that her theories were 
wrong. When Aunt Pen, 
Mrs. Morse's more worldly 
sister, argued with her, Mrs. 
Morse sometimes eidmitted 
that Madeleine's views of life 
mio'ht chaniie if she were 
once happily married, and 
at other times took the girl's 
part, asserting that she had 
known many sin- 
frle women who 
lealh seemed 
happ\, and that 




^7/ ilk m^ 



.•^ "'^'^i?^':'^ 



' FOND OF DKESS OR FLIRTATION. 



UNPICTURESQUE AMERICA. 1 9 

Madeleine should be left perfectly free to choose her own career in 
life. Aunt Pen had no patience with her sister. " The girl will be an 
old maid," she lamented, as though this were the crowning misfortune 
which could ever befall a woman. " She will certainly be an old 
maid unless Providence interferes to prevent ; " and Aunt Pen made 
an inward resolution that Providence should interfere. 

To a certain extent her designs were favored. Uncle Jonah, Aunt 
Pen's husband, had lands in Florida which he thought needed atten- 
tion ; and as Mrs. Morse's married daughter was spending the winter 
at home, and was an excellent housekeeper, she was free to make the 
trip deemed so necessary for her health. Mrs. Morse would not have 
allowed Madeleine to make this sacrifice for her comfort, had not Aunt 
Pen persuaded her that the girl was herself overworked and nervously 
overwrought, and that the change would be extremely beneficial for 
her. In her inmost soul Aunt Pen saw in this circumstance the 
interposition of Providence which she had hoped for, and determined 
that this season should mark, as indeed it did, a turning-point in 
Madeleine's life. As for this Western friend who desired to make 
the trip with them before returning to some frontier post. Aunt Pen 
saw in her a valuable ally. " Those Western girls are always jolly 
and good company," she thought to herself; "she will attract just the 
desirable individuals, and when once brought into our circle I can 
easily divert the one I approve of to Madeleine. She will help keep 
Madeleine good-natured, instead of moping like a tombstone, and lead 
her into all sorts of gayeties which the girl would never consent to 
were she alone. Altogether, it is a very good idea to. take this 
Atchison girl along. Madeleine is a classic beauty, and has perfect 
breeding; the Atchison girl will have Western manners, just a little 
loud: Madeleine is an heiress; the Atchison girl is sure to be poor, — 
altogether an admirable foil for Madeleine." 

Then Uncle Jonah handed Aunt Pen a letter postmarked St. 
Augustine, and that estimable lady read with great satisfaction, — 



20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

" The greatest catch of the season is Captain Saunters ; he is the only son 
of the senior member of the firm of Saunters & Scutcr, who made sucli a 
fortune in wheel-grease. He is a universal favorite, and a little spoiled, of 
course." 

Aunt Pen folded the letter and put aside her eyeglasses. " Jonah," 
said she, " we must make St. Augustine our first stop. Have you 
telegraphed for rooms ? We shall want to stay a fortnight." 

" But, my dear, you know I want to go up the Ocklawaha at 
once." 

" Certainly ; but I 've been thinking there must be a great deal of 
malaria and alligators and things on the Ocklawaha, and it would 
never do to take Miranda and those girls into such a dangerous 
region." 

" As you please," said Uncle Jonah, with gentle resignation. " I 
can make the trip alone ; but you miss it. It \s the prettiest part of 
Florida." 

Meantime the friends were on their way to New York. "Just 
think," said Cleopatra, looking out from the car window upon tiie 
frozen Hudson, " how soon we shall exchange this snowy landscape 
for palmettoes and ' the banana with leaf like a tent ' ! " 

" If we could only go camping in the wilds with Uncle Jonah!" 
said Madeleine ; " but Aunt will take us to the most fashionable 
hotels, and to the same imbecile young men who imagine themselves 
so extremely irresistible." 

Patrick laughed gayly. " I don't see why we should concern our- 
selves about the young men," she replied. " They rather amuse me, 
but they never trouble me long; I have only to pretend that I am 
preternaturally learned, and they flee from me in terror." 

" Do they .^ " asked Madeleine. " I will buy a pair of blue spectacles 
at once, and stalk about with a microscope under one arm and a Greek 
lexicon under the other. But, Pat, you don't know my Aunt Pen ; 
she is the most irrepressible matchmaker. She has married all her 



UN PIC TURESQ UE A M ERICA . 



21 



daughters, and nearly all of my cousins as well. Her only unsuccess- 
ful financiering attempt was with little Myrtle ; she whisked her off 
to Italy, and nearly had her wedded to an Italian Count, when some 
way, no one knows how, the child managed to show a little courage 
and to resist her machina- 
tions until, by the aid of a 
good fairy, the Count was 
proved to be a swindler. 
I am Aunt Pen's despair. 
She knows that I am a 
man-hater, and it fills her 
with horror to think that 
one of her nieces has vol- 
untarily elected to be an 
old maid. She has labored 
with mother on her folly in 
allowino" me to come to 

O 

Vassar, where she thinks 
my unnatural notions have 
been confirmed. I have no 
doubt that she is revolving- 
some deep-laid scheme for 
disposing of us both in the 
matrimonial market." 

" She has very short 
time for her schemes," demurred Cleopatra ; " we are not likely to be 
deeply entangled." 

" Trust Aunt Pen for that; she 's a lightning-calculator. She took 
Cousin Sophy for a week to Lake Mohonk, and had her engaged to 
an oil-merchant thirty minutes before the time was up." 

" Well, Madeleine, if your gentle Cousin Myrtle could resist her 
machinations when a foreign nobleman was in question, I think that 




AUNT PEN AND MADELEINE. 



2 2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

you and I will be tolerably safe. I shall take my camera and devote 
myself to taking instantaneous views ; and if any rash young man 
approaches you, I will point it at him, and you shall see how quickly 
he will take himself from the scene. I do not think your Aunt Pen 
will attempt to make any plans for my future, but if she does I ex- 
pect to have great fun in frustrating them. I am not afraid of young 
men, Madeleine dear; I was brought up in the army." 

''Afraid of them ! " Madeleine's lip took a contemptuous curl ; it 
was as if she had said, " I am not afraid of a blue-bottle fly." 



CHAPTER II. 



ST. AUGUSTINE. 



First Impressions. 




HE quaint half-foreign city lay basking in the sun, 
its foreignness almost blotted out by the mushroom 
growth of gioantic hotels and an overwhelming^ 
tide of pleasure -and -health -seeking Northerners. 
It took a keen eye, alert for the picturesque, to 
detect the old coquina houses, with the gray 
arches of their inner patios rendered more shadowy 
by palms and cascades of cloth-of-gold roses ; for 
these old landmarks were being rapidly shouldered 
aside and even displaced by pretentious villas. But old Castle San 
Marco slumbered still just outside the town, and the tide lapped its 
walls as it did in the old days of Spanish occupation, while the ever- 
encroaching sand-dune strove to bury the fortress with its legends of 
horror out of men's minds and sight. From the hotel piazza the 
wide-sweeping bay could be seen shimmering sleepily in the sunshine, 
just as though it were not January and storms were vexing the north- 
ern seas. Everything suggested lazy day-dreams and the land where 
it is always afternoon. Madeleine, with an expression of unwonted 
interest in her weary face, looked from the omnibus that rattled 
briskly across the long causeway that crosses the Maria Sanchez 
River. A crack of the whip, and the Spanish Plaza was in view, 



24 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



and she heard the unmusical bells of the cathedral clanoincr the 
hour discordantly from their bizarre arches. They passed down St. 
Georges Street, lined with its picturesque booths and curiosity shops, 
to the hotel, whose gleaming whiteness Willis would have described 
as a Mont Blanc hotel with Dover cliff verandas. 




ON THE HOTEL I'lAZZA, ST. AL(;US'HNE. 



A ragged negro boy in a Tam-o'-Shanter cap was wandering 
through the halls, seeking a purchaser for the yellow jasmine with 
which his arms were filled. Madeleine untangled the long sprays 
with rapture; the faint but exquisite odor reminded her of nothing 
she had ever met with, for no perfume is so delicately sweet as that 
of the jasmine. She fastened a knot of it in her mother's dress, and 
engaged the boy to bring her some every day of their stay. 



ST. AUGUSTINE. 



25 



That evening, after Mrs. Morse was comfortably settled, the girls 
strolled out with Uncle Jonah to visit the shops. They were so oddly 
un-American that Madeleine was reminded, in spite of herself, of walks 
in Nice and Florence, of booths along the 
quays and the tiny jewelry-stores of the Palais 
Royal and the Rue de Rivoli. Still, these were 
more Spanish in character. The street was 
very narrow and overhung with gayly painted 
balconies, which jutted from the upper sto- 
ries of the yellowish white and whity-gray 
coquina-built houses. It only needed a black- 
mantillaed beauty leaning over the balus- 
trade, and gayer trappings on the mules which 
threaded their way beneath, to complete the il- 
lusion and reproduce Fontarabia or Seville. 

" It is a pity," said Madeleine, " that the 
costumes are not Spanish. See that dapper 
little fellow coming down the street, his slim 
little legs in very tight pantaloons, and his en- 
tire fiQ^ure onlv a trifle less slender than his 
rattan ; how utterly insignificant he looks ! " 

" Who } What ? " asked Uncle Jonah, 
vaguely ; and then, catching sight of the in- 
dividual in question, he exclaimed, "Why, it 
is Dr. Pettyman ! " 

Dr. Pettyman approached on hearing his 
name called in so hearty a tone, and, recognizing Uncle Jonah through 
his lorgnette, bowed with great affability, while Uncle Jonah pre- 
sented his friend to the young ladies, launching, in his desire to say 
something agreeable, into one of his not unusual malapropisms : 
"They were just talking about you, my dear fellow; indeed they 
were." 




DR. PETTYMAN. 



26 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

" Deeply honored, I am sure," murmured the gentleman. " And 
what were they saying? " 

" My niece was just saying — Upon my soul, wliat were you say- 
ing, Madeleine? " exclaimed Uncle Jonah, suddenly realizing that her 
remark would not bear repetition. 

Madeleine replied, with heightened color, that it was hardly neces- 
sary to increase Dr. Pettyman's vanity by repeating their remarks ; 
and passing her hand through her uncle's arm, she left the task of 
entertaining the Doctor to Cleopatra. As they fell behind on the nar- 
row sidewalk, Cleopatra remarked that they had just been saying it. 
was such a pity that there was no foreign population to enhance the 
quaintness of the Spanish surroundings. 

" But there is a distinct foreign population," replied Dr. Pettyman, 
" very interesting to an ethnologist. These shops are kept principally 
by Minorcans. Seduced by false promises from their Mediterranean 
island, the Minorcan colony were held for many years to the cultivation 
of indigo, in a slavery more degrading if possible than that of the negro ; 
and their descendants still suffer from this heritage of servitude." 

Theoretically Dr. Pettyman pitied the Minorcans; practically he 
considered them a low set, and their social ostracism quite the correct 
thing. 

They had been walking so near together that Madeleine had over- 
heard the conversation, and was interested in spite of herself. A group 
of young Minorcan girls now passed them, bareheaded, with olive 
complexions and melting Italian eyes; they were plaiting palmetto 
braids as they walked, and they called each other soft Southern 
names, — " Maruja," " Manuela." 

Madeleine now read the names upon the signs more carefully, — 
Carreras, Oliveras, Pacetti ; and she drew her uncle into a wee sparrow- 
box of a shop which displayed the sign, " Miss Ponce, Palm Work." 

" I wonder whether she is a relative of Ponce de Leon," she 
remarked. 



ST. AUGUSTINE. 



27 



" Ask her," said Uncle Jonah, heartily. " See liere. Miss," he added, 
before his niece could restrain him, addressing a slender girl with 
short, dark, curling hair who came forward to receive them ; " my niece 
thinks you may be a relation of a friend of hers." 

" Oh no, Uncle. Ponce de Leon is not an acquaintance of mine ; " 
and seeing that the girl's eyes were smiling, Madeleine s mirth over- 
came her vexation, and she laughed merrily. Miss Ponce showed 
them her collection, — tinted palm-leaf fans, and a large collection of 
doll's hats. A quantity of dried grasses, the downy Oceola plume, 
silky thistle-balls, sprays of sea-oats, ferns, and the gray Spanish moss 
decorated the little shop. But what interested Cleopatra most was an 
album of sea-weed which Miss Ponce brous^ht forward unasked, and 
laid before Dr. Pettyman, quite as if he were in the habit of calling at 
the shop especially with a view to looking over this collection. 

" There are some new Callithamnions," she said, pointing to some 
beautiful crimson mosses, " to the which you are quite welcome if you 
will serve yourself of them, and some new specimen, to the which I 
have not written ze name for why I could not find them in ze little 
book." 

Dr. Pettyman tumbled over the leaves of the album rapidly, scrib- 
bling a name or two as it seemed to Cleopatra very much at random, 
and unscrupulously abstracting a number of rare specimens, which he 
placed carefully in his note-book, and for which he did not offer to 
pay. 

Cleopatra felt like resenting this cool behavior for the young girl 
when she saw the Doctor appropriate to himself all of the Bryozoons 
and a pale-green, plumy Ectocarpus tomentosus, the only one in the 
collection. Miss Ponce seemed to consider the naming of her un- 
known varieties recompense enough ; but what weakened this consid- 
eration with Cleopatra was a haunting suspicion that the Doctor's 
science was sometimes at fault. There was a flippant readiness with 
which he dealt out his long names which convinced her that there was 



28 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

something of the quack in his make-up. But then Cleopatra was 
given to jumping at conclusions with too few data, and had sometimes 
formed violent prejudices on insufficient grounds. She had never 
made a specialty of this department of botany, and could not meet the 
Doctor on his ow^n ground ; but she knew that Madeleine was perfectly 
able to do so, and she now asked her opinion as to a sea-weed which 
resembled a spray of feathery asparagus, which the Doctor had called 
a Bryopsis. Madeleine unhesitatingly pronounced it Cladophora flex- 
uosa, but started as she did so; for the truth was that Madeleine had 
not been thinking of sea-weed at all. She had been studying the 
young girl's face, making herself acquainted with a new type, and 
she had never before realized how interesting /^(^//^ could be. 

Yulce Ponce was a Minorcan by descent; but the strain had refined 
itself through each generation, and something distinctively American 
had been infused," unconsciously breathed in with the atmosphere in 
which she lived. Heredity was proclaimed by the mellow, halting 
English, so charming in its accent and in its very faultiness, by her 
languid Southern movements and the melting depths of her glorious 
Mediterranean eyes, — eyes which spoke at once of Spain or Italy or 
Greece. But her form had not the voluptuous roundness of her race: 
she was slight, almost spare ; her face had a pathetic expression ; a 
pallor in the complexion, a quiver about the niouth, and a hungry 
yearning in her eyes told of meagre fare for mind and body, of a 
great longing for opportunities just beyond her reach. 

Dr. Pettyman flushed when he saw that Madeleine was an adept 
in obscure botany, and edged uneasily to another part of the room 
with Cleopatra, endeavoring to interest her in sea-beans, which he 
explained were the fruit of a leguminous plant. These beans drop 
into the sea on the coasts of the West Indies, and are washed over to 
Morida by the Gulf .Stream. They looked together at different varie- 
ties of these, some like cranberries set as earrings, some like mottled 
agate as sleeve buttons, and the rare, highly polished leopard skins. 



ST. AUGUSTINE. 



29 



Cleopatra, who had taken a violent prejudice to the Doctor, displayed 
no interest, and that gentleman turned the conversation to her friend. 
" Miss Morse seems very fond of sea-weed," he said ; " we must make 
up a yachting party of young people, and gather some of the fine 
varieties which abound here." 

" I advise you not to invite Madeleine to such a cruise," Cleopatra 
replied. 

" Am I mistaken in supposing that she is interested in Algce } " 

" No ; but she is not interested in gentlemen, and we have both 
taken a solemn vow to keep out of society and devote ourselves to 
study while in Florida." 

Dr. Pettyman elevated his eyebrows, but did not look as dis- 
pleased as Cleo wished. 

In the mean time Yulee Ponce, always alert where her beloved 
Alga^ were concerned, had noticed that Madeleine had spoken with 
the familiarity and positiveness of an expert. " You have studied ze 
sea-weed," she said timidly; "you do zen lof zem." 

"Yes," Madeleine replied with a smile; "I do indeed love them, 
and you have a very fine collection. I would like to buy a set of you, 
and I would be so glad if you would let me go with you sometime in 
search of them." 

The girl's face lighted with pleasure. " Zat would be great 
honaire," she said ; " I haf thought sometime to go by boat of sail to 
Anastasia Lighthouse ; the water is more stormier, and zere come 
there some currents which dash on ze rocks some variety we do neffer 
see on our coast." 

" That will make a delightful excursion," said Madeleine ; " and 
meantime I will bring you some books I have on the subject of 
botany, in which you may be interested." 

"Zat will be so fery lofing of you," said the girl, "and I will be of 
ze greatest care possible, if I may take zem with me while I make a 
small journey with my muzza for some palm-branch for her work." 



^ic^ 



THKf.L 



H GJELS MT JdiX£. 



sffnd "dsfim down lo yon to-ingit. and irf; -wij] talr-^- 



a tme 

--vi- iiiSr left X 



^■J~*S. J^i.i.J^ 




tadt: csHfid . .... - i^^T"^ 

IT br a Faift intmlncm Triiicii rficograzed in 
2& she iad Bfrrfa- lacfore pOsSfsstrd ? 
isHDp. I^ladelemf: noticed the negro boi- of 



■ -a. ^Si± hyzi^ yd gresi Iszy hr^ck toe."^ ht said, 
^o'i«e ^ot to trablie] dber to de iTramp an' git some 
itj - for de ladies at de LoteL^ ** ShaV do no 

secli ting," he re- 
plied --- ---e 

meml^er . _;.ir- 

ed, causing it to 
shake in an in- 
dependent iasb- 
ioiL "^ Yo^ done 
got aH de Tract 
out o me TO^se 



•3'fiE <?»"I*3E JKEiS. 3 li. 



gv.ine to. Trabble 3V own self; Fse ^irine ress, I is."' 

■ ''■■:'-■- '.L-.itr*? are amusing creatmts,^ said Madeleirjr : *'biit, 
I>r- PeiiA-maxL 1 beaid 3'on speaking to Patrick about tbe Jilinorcans- 



-ical Tf 



"Miss PoDce is - 
•jut it wouid be too great a comj 



r been superficial- You see I 
":*ure. I ''-■■■- - - - ould tell 

■ o^rran,"^ Dr. Pett}-man re:. . 
vj her people to judge of 



ST. AUGUSTINE. 



their average intellectual abilities by hers. I should enjoy nothing 
better than to go into a few antiquarian and ethnological researches 
with you, but they could hardly be comprised within the limits of a 
single walk. I shall be pleased to call to-morrow afternoon, and 
would like to be your guide in visiting certain old Spanish houses, 
not easily accessible to the ordinary tourist. I am an enthusiastic 
student of Nature, Miss Morse, but I hope to show you how much 
more interesting a study is human nature." 

Madeleine thanked him, and they parted on the hotel veranda. If 
she could only have seen how the little man's bearing changed after he 
left her, — how he strutted along the sea-wall until he seemed almost 
to have grown an inch, and the wide swath he cut as he swished 
his little rattan from left to right. Clarence Saunters, sitting there in 
the moonlight, laughed aloud as he saw him coming. " I should be 
pleased to know what it is which you find so mirth-inspiring," Dr. 
Pettyman exclaimed, deeply incensed. 

'• I beg your pardon," Saunters replied, 
'■ but you looked so absurdly victorious, 
lias she accepted you, my good fellow? " 

" I '11 have you to know, Captain Saun- 
ters," replied the Doctor (who thoroughly 
hated the Captain), still more angered by 
this chance remark, " that you are not 
the irresistible lady's man that you think 
yourself, and that I have the honor of 
acquaintance with a young lady. Miss 
Madeleine Morse, who I am willing to 

wager twenty dollars would not so much as accept an invitation to 
boat or to an afternoon drive with you." 

■• Done !" replied the other, thoughtlessly. "I shr^uld like to see 
the lady who has the poor taste to prefer yfjur attcntir^ns to mine; 
and a.s I happen to know the aunt of the yrmng persfjn in fjncstion, 




f.AI'TAIN SAUXTii)<S. 



32 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

and to have just come from a pleasant chat with her, where she invited 
me at least three times to call on Miss Madeleine, I think I have a 
fair chance of winning the wager." 

The Doctor's eyes turned positively green ; they shone with tri- 
Vimph as well as malice as he thought how easily he would upset 




AN AFTEKXOON DRIVE. 



Captain Saunters's calculations by telling Miss Morse that the 
young man had betted upon his probable success in her good 
graces. 

"I say, Pettyman," exclaimed Saunters, suddenly. "I can't doit, 
after all. It isn't a nice thing to make a bet of that kind about a 
young lady;" and he turned hastily upon his heel. 

"Very easy to slip out of it on those grounds," said the Doctor, 
snecringly; "but if you are afraid of losing your money — " 

"I'm not afraid," Saunters called back, "but I'm off for a few 



ST. AUGUSTINE. 

days' shooting;" and he mentally determined not to return until the 
young lady in question had left St. Augustine. 

Aunt Pen met the girls as they entered the hotel. " My dear 
Madeleine," she murmured, " it is suc/i a pity that you have not been 
at hoine. I have just met an old acquaintance, a most charmino- 
young man, a Captain Clarence Saunters." 

Madeleine made a little scornful gesture. " I am not interested in 
young men," she said. 

" And yet," Cleopatra replied a little maliciously, " this unimpres- 
sible maiden has just invited a very exquisite young man to call upon 
her and to act as her guide while in St. Augustine." 

Madeleine flushed indignantly. " I never did anything of the 
kind," she retorted hotly ; and then correcting herself added, " Besides, 
the Doctor is n't a man, he 's only an ethnologist, and we are going to 
study human nature." 

" A very proper study for young ladies," said Aunt Pen, dryly. 



CHAPTER III. 



LEAVES OF PALM. 




HE girl looks as though she had just stepped from a 
Florentine altar-piece," thought young Saunters, 
"or rather as though she were still standino- in one." 
The thought was not an unnatural one, for the 
.two palms grew so near together that their straight 
trunks formed the sides of a frame, and their cur\-- 
ing branches the arch of the top ; a sunset sky 
behind made the beaten gold background for the 
saintlike figure within. Her tall, slender form was 
draped in a dark-blue cotton dress, of scant pattern and coarse mate- 
rial, falling in simple straight lines close to the figure; but its meagre- 
ness had nothing of tlie vulgarity of poverty about it, — it only carried 
out the idea of spirituality, and the eyes were the same appealing ones 
which had thrilled straio^ht throuo^h Madeleine's heart. She held a 
palm-branch above her head, and Saunters remembered that the palm 
was the symbol of martyrdom. He had been shooting heron and duck 
along the river, and had wandered off into the pine-barrens of F"lorida, 
and imagined that he was at quite a distance from any human habi- 
tation. The facts of the case were that he was lost, having become 
separated the evening before from his guide, Pedro. He had kindled 
a fire and slept in the open air, with no other companions than 



LEA VES OE PALM. 



a 



Turf and Field, his two dogs. He had been walking all the morn- 
ing with no breakfast, endeavoring to find a way out of the forest, 
and becoming every mo- 
ment more hungry and 
more alarmed. When 
Yulee turned her Fra 
Angelico face toward him, 
though grateful enough to 
be in a devout frame of 
mind, his thoughts did not 
linger in the realms of 
Florentine Art. 

Yulee, with womanly 
compassion for his fam- 
ished state, led him at once 
to a gypsy-like camp at 
a little distance, where a 
small tent was pitched, and 
a bony horse was tethered 
near a Florida tip-cart. A 
saunt man with a not un- 
intelligent face came for- 
ward and was introduced as " Meester Raphael Ponce, my fazer." He 
took Saunters's gun and placed it beside his own near the wagon, but 
he declined the offer of a share in his game-bag, saying that they had 
"more duck as zey could shoot in ten day." A fat, swarthy-skinned 
woman was next presented by Yulee as " my muzza," and immediately 
returned to her brooding over a little fire of pine knots which snapped 
cheerily under a tin cofFee-pot. The beverage within was a combina- 
tion of roasted sweet potatoes and chiccory, with a little Rio to give it a 
flavor; but the aroma which greeted Saunters's fainting senses seemed 
to him the most delicious he had ever breathed. He munched the 




YULEE PONCE. 



,c^ THREE VASSAR L.IRL^ A I HOME. 

broiled duck and the " pone" of corn bread, and drank the milkless 
coffee from a tin cuj) with intense delight. The wants of his grosser 
nature having been more completely satisfied with a slice of cold 
boiled ham, he was i)repared to enjoy an unexpected intellectual treat. 
The little martvr of the palm-branch, as he inwardly called his com- 
panion, opened a botanist's can, and began arranging the specimens 
which >he had collected during the day, upon sheets of porous paper, 
|)reparatorv to pressing them between two small boards, which she 
compressed tightly by means of a pair of shawl-straps. " We are on 
a what vou call ze expedition for ze botany," she remarked by way of 
explanation. 

"You have studied botanv."^" asked Saunters; and in spite of him- 
self a slight tone of surprise crept into the Cjuestion. He was immedi- 
ately ashamed of his rudeness. If he had taken it for granted that 
the girl was as u*ntutorcd as she was unassuming, he need not so 
obvi(.)Usly have shown his thought. 

She rejjlied simply, as though she had not noticed the implication : 
'■ Miss Morse is giving me some lesson." 

"And who is Miss Morse.''" asked Saimters. 

" .She ees a saint," replied Yulee, reverently. 

" A society of saints and martyrs," thought Saunters, " is almost 
too heavenly a state of atTairs for a sinner like me." 

Ikit Yulee after a little pause explained that Miss Morse w^as one 
of the winter boarders at St. Augustine, and that she knew everythino- 
and was "so kind and so beautiful as ze cjucen of anoels." 

•'Indeed." Saunters replied incredulously, "such immense erudition, 
goodnes.N, and transcendent beauty are indeed a rare combination. Is 
Madame here a botanist too?" he asked, glancing at the unintellectual 
ap|x:aring woman who was clearing away the evening meal. 

" Muzza ees very wise in ze plants; she make them in most beau- 
tiful objects. Ze palmetto work of hats and of baskets they are all of 
her." And she explained in her .soft patois, that they were o-atherinf^ 



LEAVES OF PALM. 



39 



the young, yellowish white buds of the palmetto, and how necessary it 
was to cure the leaf before it expands and turns green, when it would 
be impossible to bleach it. 

Saunters had always looked upon the fancy palm-work as so much 
useless trumpery, but now 
he found himself deeply 
interested in knowing that 
the buds of the cabbage 
palmetto make the best 
hats, but that there are few 
of these near St. Augus- 
tine, and most of the work 
is made of the Sabal ser- 
rulata, or saw-palmetto. 

Yulee had several times 
spoken of her gypsy-like 
companion as mother, but 
Saunters could not believe 
that they were related. 
He fell into a second mis- 
take, even worse than that 
of supposing her too un- 
intellectual to study bot- 
any. To Saunters there 
were only two classes, — 

the illiterate plebeian, and " our set." Yulee s appearance would hardly 
assert her a member of this exclusive body ; but he fell to wondering 
how she would look in another style of costume, and he felt that 
the result would be satisfactory. As to this woman whom Yulee 
called mother, she might be an octoroon nurse who had brought her 
up. He had heard that in the South children addressed their nurses 
as raauma or mammy. Still, the face was not quite African in its 




J 



ORIENTAL PALM. 



40 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

suggestions ; perhaps slic was Spanish, or Indian, or Creole. What- 
ever she was, he dismissed her from his mind as totally common 
and uninteresting. 

He felt that he had been silent rather longer than was quite polite, 
and rousing from his reverie asked, " What is it that you say you 
make from this palmetto?" 

" Ze hats and basket, ze napkin-ring, zc brush to cause ze flies to 
depart, and ze — what you call zat sing — zat sing what go wibble-de- 
wobbledy, backward and forward, to make more cooler zc breeze ? " 

" You mean fans ? " 

" Oh yes, ze fans." 

" You don't mean to say that the palmetto hats, which are all 
the style here, and which are so cool and light, are the kind you 
make } " 

" To be course." 

"Ah, you make them for yourself, I understand, merely for your 
own amusement. My sister has a mania for fancy-work, too ; cuts 
birds and things out of cretonne and sews them on satin ; fitted up 
my room forme, — little devils in black velvet, applique on Turkish 
towelling." 

" But no, it is not so amusing ; we have one leetle shop ; it is so 
we do make our living.' 

" Oh ! " 

There was a pause during which Yulee worked industriously with 
her botanical specimens. They were arranged to her satisfaction at 
last, and she began to pick the palmetto buds to pieces. 

" Would you like to see how we make ze plaits } " she asked. 

" If you please; but would you mind telling me what you mean 
by plaits? I do not think I exactly understand." Nor did the hypo- 
critical fellow at all care ; but although he saw the moon rising over 
the pines, and knew that it was nearly time for him to withdraw and 
prejDare his own camj) at a little distance, he wished to prolong the 



LEAVES OF PALM. 



41 



interview as late as possible, and by deft questions hindered Yulee 
so effectually that she was a full half-hour in telling him how the 
palmetto had to be stripped at the divisions of the leaf, but not 
separated entirely from the stem, how it was then bleached for 
several nights, and after that cut into fine strands by a curious little 
affair which she showed him, — a small piece of wood, perhaps an 
inch in length, into which were set at regular intervals a number of 
needle points. She drew a strip of palmetto across this instrument, 
and it was torn into narrow, smooth ribbons, which she proceeded to 
plait for him into a fancy braid of eight strands. They did not 
always use so many, she admitted ; and then he was curious to see 
all the different patterns which could be woven, and was interested 
in knowing that most of the plaiting was done by little girls, and 
that her mother sewed and shaped the hats after the plaits were 
formed, buying it by the yard from the children. He wished to 
order a hat for himself, he said, and decided, after some further con- 
versation, to have it dyed black with pomegranate juice. He tried 
hard to continue the conversation by asking if she could not attach a 
veil to it in the English tourist style, so that he could wear it when 
gunning in mosquito districts ; but Yulee was growing distraught 
and restless. At leng^th she addressed a few words to her father 
in a strange musical language which reminded Saunters vaguely of 
Italian, and the man gave a shrill whistle. 

An odd figure now limped into view from behind a cluster of 
scrub-palmetto. He was a specimen of the poor white of the South, 
but with something of Yankee shrewdness in his small bright eyes. 
His beard bristled over his s:aunt sallow face, and his clothes in their 
tatters and general unkempt appearance betrayed long familiarity 
with jungle camp-life. 

"Zees is our guide, INIeester Alligator Joe," said Yulee, with the 
air of introducing a distinguished guest. 

" Howdy. Mister .' " said Joe. 



42 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



" My name is Saunters," the young man exjjlained, realizing for 
the first time that he had not introduced himself, — "Captain Clarence 
Saunters, of the Army." 

"Wall, Caj)'n, it's a-gettin' kinder late; an' ef you'd like to turn 
in, maybe you '11 share our camp-fire over yonder." 

" \'ou will tind Meester Alligator Joe one charming teller of 
story," said Yulee, engagingly. 

Saunters protested that there was nothing he enjoyed so much as 
a hunter's or soldier's yarns told by a camp-fire; but he said it with 

very little enthusiasm, and took a lingering 
farewell of his hostesses, the elder woman lend- 
ing him a blanket, which he found very accept- 
able. Yulee had disappeared within the tiny 
tent before he follow^ed Mr. Ponce and Joe to 
the masculine side of the camp in the pine 
forest. Joe explained that his occupation was 
that of an alligator hunter. " I unites two per- 
feshuns, sir, — I 'm a 'gator dentist and a nuss; 
I may say a wet-nuss, sir, for it 's mighty slop- 
py business. I keeps a foundlin' hospital for 
little 'gator babies, and I shoots the old ones 
and relieves 'eni of their teeth. I most gen- 
erally carries two portmanteaus, — one for lit- 
tle alligators, and one for teeth and skins. I 
tans their hides likewise, and drives a right 
smart business with the Jacksonville shops. 
They all knows 'Alligator Joe,' though most 
jDCople don't call me by my perfeshunal names ; they knows me best 
as ' The Critter.' It 's a sort of pet name that folks that I 've guided 
about Floridy have give me. They say there never was such a critter 
as I am for finding his way through the lonesomest kind of sw^amp, or 
the biggest tangle of bresh that tuckered out one of yer college-bred 




'•THE CRITTER." 



LEAVES OF PALM. 45 

surveyors. When I 'm on a pleasure tramp, I 'm ' The Critter,' sir ; 
when I 'm on business, I 'm ' Alligator Joe.' " 

While " The Critter " was talking, he was deftly making Saunters 
a bed of Spanish moss, on which he now placed a large black valise 
as bolster. 

" See here, my friend," exclaimed Saunters, observing this object 
suspiciously, " is that the valise you carry your alligator orphans in, 
or is it the dental collection ? Because, if it s the teeth, they might 
be a trifle hard, and the little alligators would be perhaps — oh, well, 
we '11 say squirmy." 

" The Critter " assured him that he was not now on one of his 
professional tramps, and that the valise contained only his personal 
wardrobe ; but in spite of this explanation. Saunters surreptitiously 
removed the valise before retiring. He wrapped the blanket about 
him, piled more fuel upon the fire, threw himself down beside it, and 
thouo-ht how odd and stransre it all was. With all his affectations he 
had a kindly heart, and was not utterly and inanely vapid. His first 
glimpse of Yulee had touched his artistic nature ; there was some- 
thing in the present surroundings that appealed to the romantic. 
He remembered Borrows description of the gypsy camp in the 
dingle, his picturesque meeting and sad parting with Isabel Berners, 
and all the wild charm of a roving life depicted so well in that 
strange book, " The Rommany Rye." For the instant Bohemia laid 
her charm upon his soul, and he fancied that it might be an agreeable 
thing to cut civilization and wander for the rest of his life through 
the Florida everglades ; and so musing, hardly listening to " The 
Critter s " wonderful stories of alligator hunts and encounters, he fell 
asleep, and dreamed incoherently of driving a four-in-hand of alli- 
gators, with Yulee at his side, and the fat old Creole or octoroon or 
gypsy, in footman's costume, at the back of the coach. 

Morning came, and he parted from his new acquaintances, receiving 
directions from "The Critter " which could not fail to pilot him to 



46 



IIIREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



St. Augustine, — directions which it would have been well for him 
had he followed at once. But, attracted by Raphael Ponce's story of 
a creek which swarmed with duck, he plunged a little deeper into the 
pine woods, and enjoyed a morning of suc»ccssful hunting, taking espe- 
cial pains this time not to lose his way. His game, when shot, fre- 
quently fell into the creek, to be brought back by his faithful dogs. 
At last, a duck falling farther out than the rest, Turf launched boldly 
after it. Suddenly he let it fall, uttered a prolonged howl, and sank 
gradually into the water. Saunters comprehended at once that one of 
the alligators of which "The Critter" had told him so many seem- 
ingly impossible yarns, had seized his pet; he fired his gun, shouted, 
and threw sticks into the water without effect. The dog sank out of 
sight, and the troubled water became calm. It was only then that he 
noticed the singular conduct of the other dog. Field, who would 
ordinarily have swum for the sticks which Saunters threw into the 
water, but now crouched at his side howling with fear. 

Saunters was filled with grief, and determined to return to the camp 
for " The Critter," to obtain his help in securing the body of his pet 
from the cruel teeth of its murderer. It was only an hour past noon 
when he regained the site of the camp ; but the tent and the tip-cart 
were gone, and the ashes of the camp-fire with the remnants of the 
breakfast were the only traces which remained of his friends. It was 
impossible to guess in which direction they had gone, for the pine 
woods were crossed by a number of obscure wagon-tracks ; and sadly 
and wearily he made his way to the nearest settlement, and from 
thence to St. Augustine. There he spent much of his time for days 
thereafter in visits to the different curiosity-shops, making vague 
inquiries with reference to dried grasses, Occola plumes, and palm 
work, in the hope of rediscovering the little Martyr of the Palm 
Branch. 

Each time that he went it happened that he met a stately girl 
who was also looking for Miss Ponce. He noticed her at first only 




>^ 



■iiiililiimiw fM\: 



LEAVES OF PALM. 



49 



as having a more intelligent face than the ordinary girl of the period ; 
but as he saw her day after day lingering before Yulee's window, 
he said to himself that she was, like the rest, inordinately fond of 
shopping and of filling her home with all manner of decorative 
trash. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HUMAN NATURE. 




N tlie afternoon of tlic day following the arrival of 
our party in Florida, Dr. Pcttyman presented him^, 
self at the hotel, with several histories under his 
arm and his pockets bulging with manuscript. 
Being duly presented to Aunt Pen by Uncle Jonah 
and to Mrs. Morse by Madeleine, he joined the 
group upon the piazza, and began a dissertation 
upon Ponce de Leon, who made his first \^isit to 
Florida in 15 12, seeking the Fountain of Youth, and who named the 
country from his landing on "" Pascua Florida," or Easter Sunday. 

He read of De Soto's visit, and of Jean Ribaut and Rene de 
Laudonniere, who came with the ill-fated French Huguenots in 
1562 and 1564. 

He spoke, in an easy manner and a pleasant tone of voice, of the 
terrible butchery of the French settlers under Laudonniere, by their 
Spanish neighbors, led by the tiger Menendez. Madeleine forgot to 
fan herself, and leaned forward with a look of horrified interest on 
her expressive face, as the Doctor, warming to his description, read: — 

" Meantime poor Jean Ribaiit's vessels are wrecked, a little below Matanzas 
Inlet; but his men i;et ashore, — some two huiulred and fift}' in one party, and 
the balance, three hundred and fifty, in another. Menendez informs them that 
if thcv will come over he will ' do to them as the grace of God shall direct.' " 



HUMAN NATURE. 



51 



The Doctor continued the story, telling how Divine love, as understood 
by Menendez, directed that they should all be murdered on their march 
to St. Augustine as prisoners. 

Cleopatra could not help confessing that he read very well ; but she 
was certain that he did not feel what he read, — that he did not care 
in the least for the poor Huguenots butchered, "no por Franceses, 
sino por Luteranos " (not because they were Frerchmen, but because 




ON THE VEKAXDA. 



they were Lutherans), — and it irritated her that his reading should 
produce such an effect upon Madeleine. She was angry with his 
smooth oily accents, with the unctuousness with which he dwelt upon 
the horror, with the half-smile which quivered about his lips as he 
glanced at Madeleines rapf face; and Cleopatra yawaied impolitely as 
he completed his most telling period, — the revenge of the French 
Captain de Gourgues, who hung a number of Menendez' men, with the 
inscription, " Not because they were Spaniards, not because they were 
castaways, but because they were traitors, thieves, and murderers." 
Madeleine looked up with a reproving glance, and Patrick burst 



52 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



into a nicriT laugh. " I did not mean to be so impolite," she said. 
" Dr. Pettyman is a fine elocutionist ; he reminds me of the man who 
could repeat the word -Nebuchadnezzar' with such pathos that it would 
bring tears to the eyes of all who listened. I am a little tired of those 
lono-acro-dead Hucruenots, however, and find it rather hard to squeeze 
out a tear in their memory. The St. Augustine of to-day is so peace- 
ful and lazy, it does not seem as if any one could have energy enough 
here to butcher and massacre and do all those dreadful things. It is 
just the place to be sleepily mirthful, and to bask in the sun and 
read novels." 

" Onlv, there are few novels worth reading," said Madeleine. " Oh, 
Patrick, did we bring ' Sir Galahad ' } " 

"Who is Sir Galahad.?" asked Dr. Pettyman. 

" It is one of the few modern novels worth reading," Madeleine 
replied enthusiastically. " I remember now I put it in mother's room. 
I wanted her to read it ; " and Madeleine stepped through the long win- 
dow into the cool chamber where Mrs. Morse was reclining on a lounge. 
She knelt by her mother's side, and in her sweet solicitude for her 
comfort foroot for a moment the errand on which she had entered. 

" Who is the author of this remarkable novel ? " Dr. Pettyman 
asked of Cleopatra. 

" I don't know — that is, it is an anonymous work," she replied 
falteringly. " It is not a wonderful work of genius. Madeleine likes 
it because the hero expresses sentiments similar to her own. You 
would think him very silly. Dr. Pettyman, but I have heard Made- 
leine say that the only man whom she could endure was this hero 
on paper." 

Dr. Pettyman seemed deeply interested ; and when Madeleine 
returned w ith the book he looked it over carefully, reading some of 
the marked j^assages more than once. Madeleine showed him her 
favorite portions, and praised the book so extravagantly that strangers 
edged a little nearer and listened while Dr. Pettyman read extracts. 




ENTRANCE TO THE OLD FORT. 



HUMAN NATURE. 



55 



"Some way, it sounds just like you, Niece Madeleine," said Uncle 
Jonah. 

"That's what I have always said," Madeleine replied excitedly. 
" Whoever wrote that book thinks just as I do about a great many 
topics. I wish I could meet the author. I know I should enjoy 
talkino: with him." 

Cleopatra looked very much amused, and pulled down the light 
veil which she wore, though the sun was not shining in her eyes. 

The Doctor deliberately wiped his eyeglass, and asked, " Is not the 
authorship of this book suspected in cultivated circles } ' 

" No," replied Madeleine ; " the critics say it is some one hitherto 
unknown ; and when I wrote to the publishers about it, they replied 
that the author was very particular that the secret should not be 
disclosed." 

"Not to the world at large, possibly," said Dr. Pettyman ; "but in 
the confidence of our friendly circle, I do not mind confessing, Miss 
Madeleine, that I wrote that book." 

" You ! impossible ! " exclaimed Madeleine, looking as though a 
bomb had exploded at her feet. 

Cleopatra started violently, and throwing back her veil regarded 
the Doctor with a stare which was positively tragic. " Do you mean 
to assert," she asked slowly, " that you. Dr. Pettyman, are the author 
of this book } " 

" I am," replied the Doctor, putting on his glasses and smiling 
blandly. " A poor thing, perhaps ; but such as it is, it is my own." 

Cleopatra rose, and staggered into the house. She looked very 
pale, and the others believed that she felt ill. Madeleine was not 
surprised, when she knocked at her door a few moments later, saying, 
" Do come, Patrick ; we are going to walk up to old Fort San Marco," 
to hear her reply faintly, — 

" Please go away, dear; I have such a headache." 

But Madeleine had no suspicion of what had occasioned Cleo- 



56 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

patra's headache. She had wondered occasionally what the other 
secret could be which her friend had told her she found so hard to 
keep, but had not given the matter any serious thought, or had any 
suspicion that Cleopatra knew who had written " Sir Galahad," and 
wh\- it was that the sentiments therein expressed tallied so precisely 
with Madeleines. 

And meantime Cleopatra lay on her bed, holding her throbbing 
temples within her hands. " I disliked him when I first saw him," 
she said to herself. "Shall I expose him at once, and show Madeleine 
that he is an impostor and a liar .-^ No; he has some object in view, 
and 1 will let him go on and develop it a little further." 

V\xm\ that moment, though Dr. Pettyman little suspected it, he 
was studied by a watchful and suspicious pair of eyes, which weighed 
his words and actions in a balance heavily weighted by an act which 
he could never explain away or excuse. 

At first Ur. Pettyman seemed to have made a great stride in 
Madeleine's regard by his stratagem. She no longer regarded him 
simply as an ethnologist, but as a man, and as a man with whom she 
was already well acquainted ; for had he not given her of his best 
thought in his novel, and what were weeks of ordinary chit-chat, of 
teas and luncheons, of whist and German, to this } 

Madeleine found it difficult to make up her ])arty for San Marco. 
Cleopatra's headache prevented her from going ; her mother was not 
equal to so long a walk; Aunt Pen was cross. "I promised Captain 
Saunters," she said, " that he should show us the fort." 

"Then we'll go again. Aunt," replied Madeleine; "but we are not 
obliged to wait for him indefinitely." 

This was the true cause of Aunt Pens irritation. She had ex- 
pected to see Captain Saunters appear at once and claim the privileges 
which she had extended to him, and she had just heard from him, 
through a politely expressed note, that he would be absent for some 
time, .shooting in the pine barrens. It was not only a disappointment 



HUMAN NATURE. 



59 



to her plans, but, as it seemed to her, an insult; and here was this little 
nobody occupying the field with apparent success. No, she would 
not go to San Marco, — it was too hot; and Madeleine must not think 
of going there alone with Dr. What 's-his-name, unless she wished 
people to think — Madeleine closed the door quickly, and Uncle 
Jonah good-naturedly consented to accompany them. 

Dr. Pettyman and Madeleine walked side by side along the old 
sea-wall, engaged in close conversation. Dr. Pettyman had need of 
all his faculties to prevent his falling into the sea, or into some equally 
.dangerous pitfall, in reference to " Sir Galahad," which Madeleine 
insisted on discussing; but he was wary, and they reached the castle 
moat without mishap. Uncle Jonah following, like an over-fed poodle, 
considerably in the rear. Then the Spanish coat-of-anns over the 
portal, the drawbridge, the scarp and counterscarp, and the old grass- 
grown barbican formed new topics of conversation. He launched 
boldly into the Seminole war, spoke of the sieges the old fort had 
sustained, and of the ambuscades laid by the Indians for the troops 
whenever they ventured to penetrate the swamps ; and for the moment 
Dr. Pett}'man was safe. 

The old Castle San Marco, now called Fort Marion, has been used 
for some time as a prison for Indians. In this prison, presided over 
by Captain R. H. Pratt, was started some years ago the nucleus of 
Government training-schools for Indians, which have since proved so 
successful. The Captain was placed here in charge of a few Indians, 
some of them noted desperadoes, and all accused of crime. He 
treated them as men, and allowed some philanthropic ladies to teach 
them ; and some of these prisoners, on their release, asked to be 
allowed to remain in the East and study more. They were sent to 
Hampton, which from that time was thrown open to the Indian as 
well as to the colored man. The Government, finding that the call for 
education on the par!: of the Indian was an increasing- one, detailed 
Captain Pratt to open an Industrial School for Indians at Carlisle 



6o 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




Barracks, Pennsylvania. This school now stands at the head, not 
only of all Indian schools but of all schools, as an exponent of 
industrial training in the different trades. 

Madeleine knew something of this history. She knew, too, that 
imprisoned at Fort Pvlarion was the main part of Geronimo's band, 
the .Apaches, whose capture had given the Government so much 
trouble, and she liad hoped to have a view of the prisoners. She 

was much disappointed when told by tlie 
officer in charge that this was not per- 
mitted, as it had a bad effect upon the 
Indians to be looked upon as a show. 

Dr. Pettyman assured her that they 
were very uninteresting creatures, — de- 
^y graded to the last degree, and indescrib- 
ably brutal and savage. 

" Perhaps it is our fault," said Made- 
leine, " if this is so ; " and at the same 
time a doubt as to the truth of the Doctor's assertion crept into her 
mind. " I wish I could have a good talk with Geronimo, and learn 
his side of the question." 

" Geronimo and the other chiefs are at Fort Pickens," said the 
Doctor. '' St. Augustine people would n't have him here. They 
were afraid of a general uprising, and a massacre, you know." 

"How is this, Dr. Pettyman?" Madeleine asked suddenly, after a 
pause ; " in ' Sir Galahad ' you inveigh so gloriously against the inhu- 
manity and injustice of our people to the Indians, and now you do not 
seem to believe in them at all." 

Dr. Pettyman stammered an apology, and again turned the con- 
versation to safer channels, explaining that the castle had been built 
by Indian labor under the Spaniards, and that captives had even 
been brought from Mexico to assist in quarrying the great blocks of 
coquina (a shell conglomerate) and in building the immense walls. 



ONli OF GICROM.MO S BAND. 



HUMAN NA TURE. 



6i 



Sixty years they labored to complete it, before the globe and cross, 
with the inscription and the date 1756, were carved over the portcullis, 
with the castles of Castile and the rampant lions of Aragon. They 
strolled down the grassy moat to visit the city gate, — or rather the old 




THE OLD GATE, ST. AUGUSTINE. 



coquina gate-posts with their flanking fragments, which proved that 
the city was once a walled town, — and then back to the cathedral 
and plaza to search out other interesting reminders of old Spanish 
occupation. 



CHAPTER V. 



SWEET AND SOUR ORANGES. 




ALMY days were threaded one after another like 
scented rosary beads upon a golden chain. Mrs. 
Morse grew stronger, and a delicate tint like that in 
the heart of a conch shell flushed her cheeks. She 
joined them in their walks and drives, and learned to love 
tlie old Spanish landmarks as well as the girls. Aunt Pen 
became reconciled to the recreancy of Captain Saunters b}' 
the appearance on the scene of a wealthy orange-planter 
Mr. Riel S. Tait, a middle-aged widower who took them 
-■■^'■' all to see his plantation of oranges. The perfume of the 

blossoming grove was heavy on the air, and modern luxury had 
done all that wealth can do in the villa of the owner, which was pre- 
sided over by his sister, a very fashionable woman. But to Madeleine 
this display and perfume were equally oppressive, and the rotund form 
of Mr. Tait bowling leisurely along the long promenades reminded 
her absurdly of the largest ball in a tenpin alley. "He looks like 
a pri/x' orange dropped from one oi his own trees," she whispered 
to Cleopatra. That young lady had just quartered an immense 
orange, and was proceeding to enjoy its luscious sweetness, when an 
xprcssion of keen distress shot across her face. 

"What is the matter, Pat.?" cried Madeleine; "have you the 
toothache .'' " 



SWEET AND SOUR ORANGES. 



"It's sour r' groaned Cleopatra. " Vinegar is nothing to it; it's 
concentrated lime-juice." 

' I should have warned you," apologized Mr. Tait, who now ap- 
proached. " Our native fruit is quite sour until grafted by the 
sweet variety, for which . 

it makes an excellent 
stock." 

" Then why don't you 
graft them all ; and pray, 
why do you raise any sour 
oranges } " asked Cleo- 
patra. 

" Do you see that man 
sitting on the bench yon- 
der under the live-oak '^. 
He is a manufacturer of 
champagne, and buys my 
sour oranges for that pur- 
pose." 

" I don't wonder he has such a sour expression," Madeleine 
remarked. " I have noticed him before, and was sure he was a 
misanthrope." 

A dainty tea was served on the veranda of the cottage; and then 
Mr. Tait drove them home behind his dashing four-in-hand, the foot- 
man depositing at their door a hamper of oranges and a basket of 
orange blossoms. 

But Madeleine placed the flowers outside her window. They sick- 
ened her ; she was tired of .society and junketing, and she opened 
her Moral Philosophy resolutely, and read far into the night. 

In the morning she went, as she had gone every day for some time 
past, to see if Yulee Ponce had returned from her botanical excursion; 
and this time, as so often before, there was a well-made, well-dressed 




MR. TAIT AND HIS GUESTS. 



64 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



young man just in- advance of her, who turned into Yulee's Httle shop. 
Yes, he liad entered the door ; then it was open, and Yulee was pre- 
sumably there once more. 

'IMiere was a dark heavy-featured woman at the counter, wlio pointed 

Madeleine to a door at the 
back of the shop leading in- 
to a garden, — a tangle of 
bananas, clambering roses, 
palms, and blossoming flow- 
ers. An arched cloister or 
portico bordered the garden 
on two sides, giving it the 
semblance of a Spanish court, 
or patio. The floor of the 
portico was flagged with worn 
stones, and the pillars and 
arches were of gray coquina 
wreathed with clambering 
passion-vines and jasmine. 

It was not make-believe 
theatrical Spanish architec- 
ture, like the two new hotels, — 
the Ponce de Leon with its 
bewildering miradors, loggia, 
wrought-iron balconies, gargoyles, gaudy tiles, and Moorish arches ; or 
the Casa Monica, with its cavernous gateway, a restoration of the Puerta 
del Sol of Toledo. It was a veritable relic of Spanish occupation of 
the better class. F"ew such houses now remain, with their red roofs of 
corrugated tiles surmounting the quiet gray stone walls and flaring 
like a cactus blossom against the deep blue of the sky. 

On a low chair in a shady angle Yulee sat braiding palmetto ; while 
the stranger stood at a little distance, watching the operation with 




THF. SOUK-OKAXGK MAN. 



SWEET AND SOUR ORANGES. 



67 



interest. Yulee dropped her work and ran forward to meet Madeleine, 
taking both her hands and chattering like a parrot of the flowers she had 
found on her expedition. Suddenly she remembered that she had not 
introduced her guests, and did so in her stately Spanish manner. Then 
she darted into the house and 
brought out her herbarium and 
case of fresh specimens, and Saun- 
ters begged permission to remain 
and attend the botany lesson. He 
proved himself something of an 
adept as well, having given much 
attention to the subject. The morn- 
ing sped away unconsciously, and 
the lesson might have been pro- 
longed indefinitely had not Madame 
Ponce been seen laying the table 
for the midday meal. Captain Saun- 
ters accompanied Madeleine to her 
door, and told her as they walked 
how he had first met Yulee and 
how much she interested him. " I 
thank you," he said simply, " for what you are doing for her ; you 
are opening a new existence to the girl." 

After that it was but natural that they should meet frequently in 
the cool cloister at the back of the little shop. Sometimes Cleopatra 
came too, and joined in the readings or braided Yulee's plait while she 
pursued her studies. Cleopatra liked Yulee, but not with the enthusi- 
astic fondness which Madeleine felt for her pupil. She liked Saunters 
also ; there was something frank and open about him which had won 
her admiration from the first. He called often at the hotel ; and Aunt 
Pen now approved of the lessons given to Yulee Ponce, which she 
had formerly regarded as a Quixotic missionary enterprise. She 




CAPTAIN SAUNTERS CALLS. 



5S THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

talked it all over with long-suffering Uncle Jonah ; for in some way 
Mrs. Morse, though sisterly, and accessible on other topics, never liked 
to talk over her daughter's possible prospects. Mr. Tait had fallen 
in Aunt Pen's good graces because — a rather absurd reason, at first 
sioht, — because it was so difficult to eat oranges nicely! 

He had ser\ed oranges at his villa, he had sent them oranges since 
in hampers and baskets; but Aunt Pen could never divide one of the 
o-olden balls without makinc: a mess of it. She had stained her helio- 
trope satin at the tea-party. She had wiped b.cr dripping fingers on her 
best embroidered handkerchief when practising in private, and was aware 
that she had frequently made a spectacle of herself at the hotel table. 
If Madeleine should setde in Florida, Aunt Pen knew that it would be 
incumbent upon her to visit her niece and to eat of her nephew's 
oranges; therefore Aunt Pen turned her favor from Mr. Tait. Hearts 
have broken for less cause; but Madeleine was happily unconscious of 
the schemes with which her aunt amused herself during the interval 
between the meals, which were to her the chief events of the day. 

Of course it not unfrequently transpired that Dr. Pettyman was 
reading: to the ladies when Saunters came in with mao^nolias or mis- 
tletoe, water-lilies or tropical fruit. Sometimes the history was sud- 
denly dropped to admire a curlew's rosy breast or a flamingo's scarlet 
wing; and the Doctor glared the rage he dared not speak, while the 
Captain told them of his hunting expeditions, of reedy creeks and 
yachting trips along the coast where the yacht was anchored among 
flocks of flamingoes. He invested the old fort with a new interest, 
and procured a special permit by which they were allowed to visit 
the interior. He explained Vauban's system of castle-building more 
clearly than the Doctor had done, showed the bastions, and took 
them up to the little pepper-pot watch-towers in which some Indians 
were crouching. 

" It has all the background for a weird romance," said Cleopatra. 
" Only give us a night effect, a tangle of vines about the masonry. 




THE ITATCH-TOWER 



SWEET AND SOUR ORANGES. 



71 



and those figures might be ghouls or ghosts or bandits, as you choose. 
I presume thrilling dramas have really been acted here in the past." 

" The present is dramatic enough for me," said the Captain, as he 
led them through the narrow passage-way between the tents with 
which the ramparts were crowded. " Here are four hundred and forty- 







FLAMINGOES. 



seven Indian prisoners, only ninety of whom are men, and possibly 
only half of those guilty of any outrage, the remainder torn from their 
homes by an act as arbitrary as the removal of the Acadians from 
Grand Pre. Good may come of it; but it is strange justice all 
the same, and will probably furnish material for a poem like that of 
' Evangeline ' to some writer of the twentieth century." 



72 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

He introduced them to Chief Chatto, imprisoned he thought for 
no sufficient reason; and to Kieta and Martinez, Apache scouts, who 
had brought about in great part the surrender of Geronimo, and had 
been rewarded by imprisonment with the brigands. " Our Govern- 
ment does not discriminate over-nicely," he said rather bitterly. 

They visited the school for the prisoners, carried on by those noble 
women, Miss Mather, Mrs. Caruthers, and the Misses Clark. 

Madeleine looked on with keenest interest. " How quickly 
they learn," she said, "and what a noble cause to which to devote 
one's life!" 

"Yes," replied the Captain; "Indians are interesting whether as 
foes or wards. I would rather be engaged in an actual Western cam- 
paign at this moment than idling in this American Italy." 

Madeleine olanced at him with a Heam of admiration. " You are 
not over-complimentary," she said, " but I can understand the feeling. 
If I were a man I would want to do something." 

Cleojjatra laughed. " Just as if you were not doing something as 
a girl !" she said. "Captain Saunters, she has studied like a Trojan 
ever since we have been here, and has found time to coach Yulee 
Ponce every day." 

The young man's expression softened. " I am glad you have 
taken up Yulee," he said. '' What do you think of her, Miss Morse } 
Is she capable of education .? " 

'■ Indeed she is," replied Madeleine; "and she has a rather remark- 
able education already, though in irregular lines. I want her to go 
to Vassar for a special course in Science, but her family are so very 
poor. 1 could help her out of my own allowance, but could not quite 
afford to pay her entire tuition." 

" Will you not let me share in this good work .^ " asked the young 
man. " I am deejily interested in this." 

" Thank you. Captain, but I fear that Miss Ponce is too proud to 
accept such a gift at your hands." 



SWEET AND SOUR ORANGES. 



73 



" I am afraid she is. Will you not then allow me to do it in your 
name ? " 

" No, indeed, Captain Saunters ; if Yulee would accept it from 
me, — and of this I am doubtful, — her gratitude would shame me 
so that I could not keep the secret." 

" We might do this," suggested Cleopatra : " tell her that some 
benevolent man had founded a scholarship, — that's what Captain 
Saunters' offer amounts to, — and that you, Madeleine, have sent in 
her name as one of the competitors. Make her understand that it is 
a matter of passing the best examination or something of the kind. I 
think if we explain it all to Professor Hartley when we return to the 
college, he will aid and abet us by writing her an official letter stating 
her admission." 

" How clever you are, Cleo ! " said Madeleine, admiringly. " I am 
willing to enter into such a scheme ; " and so it was arranged. 

A bond of union seemed suddenly to have united Madeleine and 
the Captain. The young girl's quick intuition told her that he was 
interested, even more deeply than he professed to be, in Yulee, and 
was therefore not likely to be " ridiculous " with her. She could chat 
with him familiarly now without any fear of being misunderstood, or 
of encouraging undesired affection. There was not the least spark 
of coquettishness in the girl's grand nature, and she was honestly 
thankful that Saunters did not care for her, except in this frank 
brotherly way, which was so pleasant. 

As for Saunters, the masculine heart is so complex that it would be 
hard to analyze it at this juncture. He admired Yulee, — her beauty, 
her bewitching ways, fascinated him, — but he had not told her in set 
terms of this admiration. A certain caution, peculiar to his class, told 
him to wait and see what effect cultivation would have upon this wild 
flower. Meantime he genuinely liked Madeleine, and it was very 
pleasant to bask in her society. 

" You must not study too hard," he said, with kindly concern as 



74 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

they strolled homeward along the sea-wall. "This climate is not 
favorable to intellectual effort. You must take care of your health." 

" That is what I say," chimed in Cleopatra. " Madeleine has 
grown quite pale since we came here. Aunt Pen threatens to take 
us all away. She thinks there is malaria about the hotel, and is of 
the opinion that it would do us good to go with her husband when 
he makes his trip up the Ocklawaha." 

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Madeleine; "I would not be able then to 
assist Yulee, and she is progressing so nicely." 

" Is there no way of combining study with exercise ? " mused 
Saunters. "A dashing gallop would bring the blood into your 
cheeks ; " then, as Madeleine shook her head, he added : " I have it ; 
I will take you all for a yachting trip to Matanzas or Anastasia 
Island. The studies could go on as usual, and it will do your 
mother good." 

Madeleine hesitated. " Yulee and I have talked of making such 
an expedition for sea-weed," she said. " I am afraid, however, that 
mother is not strong enough yet, and I could not leave her." 

Contrary to expectation, Mrs. Morse thought the trip would 
benefit her ; and, the next morning being sure to be cloudless, a 
party was hastily made up for Anastasia Island, including our tourists, 
Yulee Ponce, and Dr. Pettyman. The Doctor, however, could not be 
found, and his place was filled by Mr. Tait. Aunt Pen, too, who had 
been very enthusiastic up to the last moment, dropped out as they were 
starting, saying — which was true — that she was a very poor sailer. 
The others started in high glee. Saunters had found, to his disgust, 
that none of the yachts were available at such short notice, and had 
been obliged to content himself with a fruit-schooner, just in with 
a cargo of sponges from the Bahamas. As they started, Cleopatra 
opened a locker that Captain Saunters had indicated as a good place 
in which to store wraps, and found it filled with oranges. She threw 
two of them into the air, catching them like a juggler. 



SWEET AND SOUR ORANGES. 



75 



" Ugh ! said Aunt Pen, shrugging her shoulders as she turned 
away ; " I wonder Floridians don't turn into oranges." 

" Sweet or sour, which will you choose? " laughed Cleopatra. 

" Unfortunately, we cannot tell from the outside appearance," said 
Madeleine. 

"Almost as bad as choosing a partner for life," remarked Uncle 
Jonah, jocosely; "the handsomest ones are pretty sure to be the 
sourest." 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE CAPTAIN'S WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. 




JKAT a trip it was! They did not put boldly to sea, 
but loitered down the Matanzas River, which is here 
a salt-water estuary, with Anastasia Island forming 
a natural breakwater on the east. They started a 
flock of pelicans in a reedy bayou, and "The Crit- 
ter," whom Captain Saunters had engaged to help 
in the manai^ement of the boat, told them a varn 
of the pelicans he had seen at the mouth of the St. 
John, — "that tame that you couldn't skeer 'em, 
an' all so took up with squabbling over their fishing that I done w-aded 
out and bagged three on 'em by ketching 'em by the legs." 

The Captain produced fishing-tackle, and all settled themselves to 
fishing. The water swarmed with salt-water trout, mullet, whiting, 
red snapper, and other fish. 

Cleopatra was so fortunate as to catch a pompano. " What a 
curious name ! " she said. " Was it Pompey or Madame de Pompa- 
dour who was fond of them.''" 

" 1 cannot say," replied the Captain ; " I only know that it is a 
most toothsome fish, the aristocrat of these Southern waters." 

They had made their way along the Matanzas without sails, as- 
sisted only by the current; but after a few hours they spread canvas, 
and returning nearly to St. Augustine stood out for Anastasia Light. 



THE CAPTAIN'S WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. 



The breeze was fresh, and the water broken ; but no one was ill, and 
their shaking up only gave them a sense of exhilaration and a keen 
appetite. They crossed a school of porpoises playing clumsily at leap- 
frog. Suddenly ever}^ black fin disappeared. 

'* We have frightened them away," said Madeleine ; " no, there is a 
white one close to the boat." 

" A white porpoise ? Impossible ! "" replied Saunters. 

" But I am quite sure," Madeleine insisted. " It was very near. I 
dropped it a biscuit, which it 
snatched greedily from my 
hand. There it is now ! " 

All looked in the direction 
in which she pointed, and 
Sauntei^ uttered a cr}% while 
" The Critter " exclaimed : " A 
shark, sure as guns I Well, you 
is lucky that he didn't take 
your hand along with the 
biscuit." 

Captain Saunters improved 
the occasion to examine the 
fair hand closely, but finding it 
unscathed, was obliged ver}- re- 
luctantl}^ to relinquish it '* It 
was the shark, and not our boat, 
which frightened the por- 
poises," he said- 

A few moments later the boat's keel grated on the sand of Anas- 
tasia Island, and a picnic dinner, for which their cruise had given 
them a keen appetite, was prepared and despatched. 

]\Ir. Tait's negro cook Elisha. who proved invaluable in preparing 
the dinner, seeing some snipe flv b-f. shouldered a shot-gun and was 




THE CrllTTEE SPIN'S A YAUX- 



3o THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

soon out of sight, lie returned late in the afternoon with a string of 
birds and a marvellous story of how he had found them in a neigh- 
boring marsh engaged in combat with some bull-frogs. He produced 
a banjo of one string from the boat, and began, in true negro st3'le, 
to improvise a ballad descriptive of his adventures. This was a favorite 
amusement of Elisha's ; there was hardly an experience or adventure 
which he would not turn into rhyme, and Mr. Tait had brought him 
anticipating that he might be seized by one of his poetical spasms. 

" Said de bull-frog to de snipe, 
' Oil, come an' dine wid me; 
I'se jellies an' ices an' strawberries ripe, 
An' plenty of water fo' tea.' 

" Says de sandpiper to de frog, 
' Yo' voice am mighty harsh; 
Yo'se ketched a cold settin' on dat log ; 
I don' cah to dine in a marsh.' 

" Says de bull-frog to de snipe, 
' Yo' airs done make me sick.' 
So de snipe held his claw fo' a friendly gripe, 
An' de frog he swallowed liim quick. 

" Now de moral ob dese jokes, — 
An' here my story ends, — 
Is dat spiteful, 'ceitful, low-down folks 
Doan make de bess kine ob friends." 

" I will take warning by your story," said Madeleine, " not to be 
too intimate with unworthy people." 

" I wish she w^ould," thought Cleo ; " but if a certain wicked frog I 
know of has any designs on my bird, I think I know^ how^ to circum- 
vent them." 

Yulee and Madeleine now separated from the party to seek and 
find the choicest sea-weed in little pools left in the hollows by the 
retreating tide. 

" Here is a bit of Sargassum ! " Yulee exclaimed. " I wonder 



THE CAPTAIN'S WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. 



8l 



whezzer it has been washed in from Sargazo Sea, in which you did 
tell me Columbus to be tangle on his way to zis country." 

Madeleine examined the strange plant, which forms a floating 
flower-bed by means of countless little life-preservers or fruit-like 
bladders, — sea-grapes, the Neapolitans call them. 




THE FROG AND THE SNIPE. 



" They look like mistletoe," said Cleopatra, winding a spray about 
a pickle-jar. " What a lovely decorative scheme for a vase ! " 

" It is marvellous how many exquisite shapes they take," said 

Madeleine, enthusiastically. " I have seen a sea-weed, the Dasya 

elegans, that resembled chenille, and other varieties that were like 

skeins of silk, waving plumes, ferns, coral, fungi, and all the capricious 

shapes of frost. I remember a poem which struck my fancy on this 

subject : — 

6 



82 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

• Was this the fringe of a sea-nymph"s robe, 
Caught in the door of a coral cave, 
Loosened by waters that span the globe 
And tossed ashore on a foamy wave ? 

' Was that the tip of a dancing plume 

That decked the head of a mermaid queen ? 
Or refuse threads from an elfin loom 
Matching her mantle of pale sea-green ? 

' Were these the trees of a mimic i^le, 
Never at loss for the sun or dew ? 
Or only the branches that decked awhile 
A fairy boat with its fairy crew ? 

' O little mosses, i)erfect and fair, 

Emerald crimson and brown and jet, 
Fashioned with infinite skill and c.re. 
The charm of the sea is with you yet.''' 

" That jjocni was evidently written by a woman," said Captain 
Saunters, wlio had followed tliem. " To a man the sea-weed brings 
thoughts of long voyages and foreign places. They come — 

' Krom Bermuda's reef ; from edges 
Of sunken ledges 
In some far-off bright Azore ; 
Krom Bahama, and the dashing 

Silver-flashing 
Surges of San Salvador, 

' From the tumbling surf that buries 

The Orkneyan skerries, 
Answering the hoarse Hebrides : 
And from wrecks of ships and drifting 

.S])ars. iiplifting 
On the desolate rainy seas.'" 

Madeleine gave him a little glance of surprise. He had thought 
of tiie poetic phase suggested by these lower forms of creation, 
which few notice or care for. They strolled along the beach, Yulee 



THE CAPTAIN S WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. 83 

returning with the sea-weed to the boat ; and the conversation took 
a more serious turn, passing from poetry into deeper channels. 

"How beautiful it all is!" said Madeleine; "I had no idea that 
America was so fascinating." 

" You should see the West," replied Saunters. " I am fretting 
to be back on the prairies ; better a life of hardship and danger 
worthy of a man than falling to pieces in idleness ! " 

"The more I think of it," said Madeleine, "the more I am im- 
pressed by the fields which this great new country offers for enter- 
prise and endeavor. There is so much to be done for humanity. 
There is the labor question in the East, the negroes here in the 
South, and the Indians in the West, and jDcople nearer us still, 
friends and sisters like Yulec, who need our help, — mental and heart 
help, I mean. But — pardon me. Captain Saunters, if I offend — I can 
hardly see the need for the sw^ord in our age, and I would like to 
know your reason for belonging to the army." 

" 1 joined it from i)ure love of adventure," he replied frankly ; 
" but I have studied the matter seriously since, and believe that until 
the Indian problem is settled we must be able to coerce as well as 
to educate and reform. The labor question, which you have touched 
upon, may yet demand armed force for the protection of law. Then 
again I, for one, do not see myself called upon to beat my sword 
into a pruning-hook so long as such a traitorous and disgraceful 
community as the Mormons bids defiance to the authority of the 
United States." 

" I hope all these questions v/ill be settled without war," said 
Madeleine, gravely ; " but there is certainly much for the wisest to 
think of, and much which the weakest can do. The great question 
for each of us is to ascertain just how and where we can best serve 
our age. There is one grand hynm which acts on my spirit like a 
trumpet call ; it urges us all to make fair and costly bequests to the 
future, and invokes aid in these words : — 



84 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

' By each saving word unspoken, 
By tliy truth as yet half won, 
By each idol yet unbroken, 
By thy will yet poorly done, 

Hear us, hear us. 
Thou Almighty ! help us on.' " 

There was a deep, sweet reverence as well as earnestness in the 
girl's tone. They were silent a moment, and then Saunters said, 
" How different you are from other girls ! " 

Her whole manner changed instantly. " Do you know that is 
not at all a pretty speech } " she said archly. " If you mean that other 
sirls are not nice, I will never admit it in the world; and if vou mean 
that I am not, I shall not like it any better." 

" Oh ! all girls are nice," said the young man, gallantly. " I 
have known half a dozen who were like you in some one particular, 
but none who united all your characteuistics. There is my cousin 
Kitty, — she is jolly and pretty, but that s all there is of her ; and my 
sister Mary is good, and talks as intelligently as any man about these 
questions which you and I have been discussing. You ought to 
know my sister Mary; you would like her, and perhaps she would 
learn from you to combine her austere virtues with more attractive 
graces. Then there is Mrs. General Dasher. She 's uncommonly 
clever in another way ; quotes poetry and writes it too, and plays the 
banjo like an angel. You remind me of her in certain ways, but 
some way as if you were the whole batch of them rolled into one, with 
a distinctive something of your own thrown in." 

The conversation was becoming more personal than Madeleine 
liked, and she adroitly drew it into other channels. 

When they returned to the boat they found Mr. Tait and Uncle 
Jonah engaged in earnest conversation. They drew Captain Saunters 
aside, and Mr. Tait asked if he was quite certain as to the sanitary 
condition of their schooner. " I have been rummaging in the hold," 
he said, "and I don't like an odor of fermentation which I find there. 



THE CAPTAINS WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. 



85 



I fear she has been imperfectly cleaned since her return from the 
West Indies." 

" Her cargo was sponges," replied Saunters ; " I thought they 
were a clean nice freight." 

" Yes, we have found a few," replied Uncle Jonah, " and they look 
very nice. I guess it is all right." 

While they were speaking, Made- 
leine was already examining them ; and 
connected with one very fine and soft, 
of the variety used by surgeons, she 
discovered a pretty piece of violet fan 
coral. " Can I have it for my col- 
lection } " she asked ; and no objec- 
tion occurring to those w^io stood near, 
the coral was placed with her sea-weed, 
and the sponge in her toilet-case. 

Only an inoffensive-looking bit of 
sponge ; but such things have been 
as full of deadly mischief as many a 
smooth-spoken soft human tongue ! 

As they drifted back to St. Augus- 
tine by sunset and moonUght, Uncle 
Jonah spoke of his projected trip up 

the Ocklawaha. " Let us make it as a party," he suggested, " and 
after that trip take a steamer up the St. John's to Titusville, and then 
a yacht trip like this of to-day along the Indian River." 

Mrs. Morse professed herself not at all tired, and approved of the 
plan ; but Madeleine said that St. Augustine was so delightful that 
she could not think of leaving it so soon. 

" You should see Fernandina on your way north," said Saun- 
ters, " if only for the sake of Dungenesse ; it is one of the Paradises 
of Florida." 




AS THEY DRIFTED BACK BY SUNSET.' 



86 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



" What is Dunsrenesse ? " asked Cleo. 

" It was the seat of General Nathanael Greene, granted him in return 
for his services during the War of the Revolution. It is on an island 
about eighteen miles long, just opposite the Georgia and Florida boun- 
dary. The stone house is now only a ruin ; but the whole estate is a riot 

of brilliant roses, magnolias, camel- 
lias, azaleas, and tropical fruits and 
flowers. It is a natural labyrinth, 
a conservatory escaped from glass. 
You must certainly see it." 

And still Madeleine insisted 
that she did not wish to go any- 
where. St. Augustine was good 
enough ; the two months which 
they had already spent here seemed 
only so many days. 

" Most devoutly do I wish that 
you may long continue in this 
mind ! " said the Captain. 

" What a delightful experience 
it was ! " said Madeleine, the next 
morning. " There is nothing worth picking up after it but dear old 
' Sir Galahad ; ' " and taking her favorite book she ensconced herself 
in a rocker on the veranda. She had not read far when Dr. Petty- 
man was announced. A frown involuntarily crossed her forehead as 
she thought that she must lay down her book. The next instant she 
laughed at herself. " Why, here is the man," she thought, " who has 
written the book, and must have all these noble thou^rhts in his 
heart, and a great many others as well worth the hearing." And she 
greeted the little man with a pleasant smile, regretting that the other 
ladies had all gone over to the old nunnery to buy some of the Sis- 
ters' lace, and that Uncle Jonah was busy preparing for his journey. 




HER FAVORITE BOOK. 



THE CAPTAIN'S WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. Sj 

But Dr. Pettyman did not pretend to regret their absence. He 
had long wanted just this little opportunity to destroy Madeleines 
growing faith in the Captain. It was a delicate task, and he began 
very cautiously and subtly, insinuating vague charges against the Cap- 
tain's character, — floating impressions which he said might not be 
true ; and even if he were not a strictly honorable man it was no one's 
business to tear the mask aside so long as he did no positive harm. 

Madeleine's pupils distended as he maundered on, and at last when 
she could bear it no longer she cried: " Dr. Pettyman, this is unfair; 
say what you mean. Captain Saunters is our friend; if he is un- 
worthy of our confidence, we ought to know it. Tell us definitely 
what you know against him." 

Dr. Pettyman appeared greatly embarrassed. " Captain Saunters 
is a great favorite with your aunt," he said. " I am doubtful whether 
it was from her or from him that I understood that you also were 
greatly predisposed in his favor, — that, if not actually engaged, still 
such an event might be anticipated." 

" No one had any right to tell you that. It is not true, though 
it sounds a little like Aunt Pen at her wildest. Captain Saunters, 
I am positive, is too much of a gentleman to talk so lightly of any 
lady of his acquaintance." 

Dr. Pettyman assumed a look of deep commiseration. " Do you 
think so ? " he asked doubtfully. 

'I know so," the girl replied indignantly; "and, Dr. Pettyman, 
these vague innuendoes are not to your credit." 

The Doctor straightened up with a well-simulated air of offended 
dignity. " It is possible that your estimate of Captain Saunters may 
not be overdrawn when he is at his best," he said; "but, my dear 
Miss Morse, when the wine is in and the wits are out, and one sits 
late at the club-house with a few jolly fellows, one becomes confiden- 
tial and sometimes boastful. Much which I have to complain of 
in our friend I cannot repeat to you ; but there is one circumstance 



88 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

whicli does concern you, and painful as it is for me to act in the 
matter, you perhaps ought to know. On your first arrival in Florida 
it was rumored that you were a young lady with a violent antipathy 
to the society of gentlemen, and Captain Saunters hearing this laid 
a high wager that you would accept his attentions, at least so far 
as to take a yachting trip with him. I am sorry to say that he has 
won the stakes." 

A bright spot burned on each of Madeleine's cheeks. " You 
say that Captain Saunters bet a sum of money about my suscepti- 
bihty to his attractions — just as a sporting-man might bet on a 
horse — in the public club-house! I don't believe it!" 

Dr. Pettyman rose, bowed, and took his hat. Madeleine did not 
attempt to detain him. Seeing that his injured manner did not 
impress her, he wheeled and remarked : " Since my word is called 
in question, may Lask you. Miss Morse, to inquire of Captain Saun- 
ters whether he did or did not make such a bet ! Perhaps you will 
believe him." 

Cleopatra, having returned from the lace expedition, came out 
upon the veranda as the Doctor took his departure. " What is 
the matter, dear } " she asked as she noted Madeleine's excitement. 
Madeleine repeated what she had just heard. 

" I don't believe it ! " exclaimed Cleopatra. 

" That is just what I said, but he told me to ask the Captain." 

"Well, why don't you do so ? " 

" Never! I would not insult him by repeating such a story." 

" It is a greater insult to let it lie and rankle in your mind when 
a word might clear it up. 71iere he is, strolling this way. You must 
ask him." 

" I can't; it is too humiliating." 

" Then I will. Go into the house and leave it all to me. I shall 
know before he opens his mouth, by the very way he looks, whether 
it is true or not." 



THE CAPTAIN'S WAGER AND THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE. 



89 



Madeleine vanished ; and the Captain took a chair, inquiring after 
all the ladies. 

" You shall see them presently," Cleopatra replied, " if you will 
kindly set my mind at rest on one point first" 

The Captain smiled. " If it is in my power," he said. 




CLEOPATRA AND THE CAPTAIN. 



Cleopatra fidgeted with the feather fan, pulling out the pretty 
pink down in her abstraction. There did not seem to be any way 
to soften what she had to say or to make it agreeable, and she boldly 
seized the bull by the horns. " Captain Saunters, did you ever make 
a bet .? " 



90 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



He seemed amused by her repressed vehemence. " You will 
spoil that fan," he said. " No, I am not a betting man. I think I 
never made a regularly registered bet in my life." 

Cleopatra did not look satisfied. " Can you assure me. Captain 
Saunters, that you never made a wager that you could induce Made- 
leine to go yachting with you ? " 

A sudden light burst upon the Captain ; he became very grave. 
" My dear Miss Atchison," he said hesitatingly, " it was very thought- 
less. I cannot express how deeply I have regretted this. It was 
before I had met Miss Morse — Will you not let me explain } " 

Cleopatra had risen, her eyes flashing with indignation. " It is 
true, then ! " she exclamied. " No, Captain Saunters, there can no 
explanation be made ; " and she entered the hotel, leaving the dis- 
comfited Captain standing bewildered and WTctched. 



CHAPTER VII. 



UP THE OCKLAWAHA. 



ERHAPS it would have availed the Captain little if 
Cleopatra had allowed him the scanty grace of plead- 
ing his own cause. It is the pity of real life that 
very few heroes are consistently heroic ; somewhere 
the true metal of the statue is mixed with miry 
clay, and the people we admire may have very sad 
faults. 

Captain Saunters had been thoughtless and care- 
less, but there was in him the making of better 
things. Madeleine had stirred his more earnest nature, 
and already he looked back at his old idle existence with 
scorn. He turned over the situation in his mind ; and though 
it was not as bad as the girls understood it, he confessed 
to himself that it was quite unpardonable. He had been piqued, 
surprised, into the bet by the Doctor. It had not occurred in the 
club-house, as the Doctor had led them to infer, to the scandal 
and amusement of all St. Augustine, and he had repudiated the 
remark almost as soon as he had made it. Still, words let fall can 
never be really unsaid, and he could not deny them. " I will see 
her to-morrow," he said to himself, " and tell her the whole thing 
from beginning to end, and that I can't understand how I came to 




Q2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

do such an ungentlemanly act. Perhaps, when she sees how really 
repentant I am, she will forgive me." 

Meantime the girls were deeply hurt. " To think," said Made- 
leine, "that yesterday I actually thought him an honorable and de- 
liohtful man, with even a more interesting and finer nature than the 
Doctor's, in spite of his charming book.". 

" Men are all horrid," replied Cleopatra. " I never want to see 
him again." 

" We need not," replied Madeleine ; " Uncle Jonah leaves to- 
morrow for the Ocklawaha, and he will be delighted when he learns 
that we have decided to go with him." 

And so it canie about that when the Captain, a little hopeful 
over the carefully framed explanation which he had thought out, 
called the next day, he was just in time to receive a parting hand- 
grasp from Aunt 'Pen and a cool bow from the girls as the omnibus 
rolled away to the train. What exasperated him still more was the 
fact that he was sure that he saw Dr. Pettyman inside the omnibus, 
though his small sharp face was nearly eclipsed by Madeleine's great 
Gainsborough hat. He went at once to Yulee Ponce's little shop, 
and learned from her that Miss ]\Iorsc intended to stop at St. 
Augustine on her return to the North, and had arranged a course 
of study for her to pursue in the mean time. This was encour- 
aging so far as it went, and on this scrap of hope Saunters lived many 
days. Only the day after they left, his heart gave a wild throb as 
he saw a well-remembered hat among the promenaders on the sea- 
wall; l^ut the next instant showed him that though the hat was 
really Madeleine's, the face beneath it was that of the hotel cham- 
bermaid to whom the girl had given a quantity of her cast-off 
finery. 

Strange to say, his affection for Madeleine grew with the difili- 
culties laid in its way. Yulee's beauty lost its attractiveness, and he 
found him>clf dwelling on Madeleine's ideas and aims, and shaping 



UP THE OCKLAWAHA. 



his own plans and conduct by them. We have heard of the lady to 
know whom was a liberal education. Saunters had found it still 
more to know Madeleine, for she had 
stimuLated not only his mental but his 
moral nature. A poet has said, — 

"You love ! That's high as you shall go; 
For 't is as true as Gospel text, 
Not noble then is never so, 

Either in this world or the next." 

Dr. Pettyman also loved Madeleine, 
or thought he did ; but the affection 
awakened no craving after nobler being, 
only a low chuckling satisfaction as he 
sat beside her on the steamer deck 
sweeping up the noble St. John's in 
the glorious weather, — a base satisfac- 
tion with the neat way in which he had 
outwitted his rival. 

They steamed up the St. John's to 
Palatka, passing orange plantations and 
winter hotels, swamps and jungles, evi- 
dences of man's enterprise and still 
unexplored jungles, almost side by side. 

Wild ducks flew overhead, and occasionally a dark mass lifted itself 
and disappeared, which some one asserted was an alligator. 

"The Critter" was among a group of rough-looking men on 
the lower deck, telling his Munchausen stories. " Yes, sir," said he, 
" I was gunnin' on this very river in '58, an' I seen a floatin' island 
comin' down with the current. I rowed over nicrh enouoh to see 
that though the island wa'n't very big, it was a perfect flower-garding, 
jis covered with blossoms an' posies. Wall, gentlemen, I was just 
about to step from my boat on to it when the hull sunk outer sight 




A wi:ll-:-;e.mi:mi;kki:i) hat. 



C)4 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

quicker than you could say Jack Robinson. You see it was a 'gator 
who had plated himself pretty well with mud, and seeds had blown 
on it and sprouted into the garding I tell ye of." 

"The Critter's" story was received with laughter, which was rather 
approving than derisive. He was well known on the river, and no 
one tired of hearing his tales, particularly as he never repeated them 
in exactly the same way. 

At I^alatka our travellers were transferred from tlie great river- 
steamer to the narrow little craft -in which they were to thread the 
tortuous channel of the Ocklawaha, which empties into the St. John's 
a few miles above, opposite the little town of Wclaka. 

They turned into " the mysterious river " late in the afternoon ; for 
Uncle Jonah had planned that they should have the night trip, with 
all its lilamour of torchliii:ht reflections in the inky water. The stream 
was so narrow that the trees arched over on either side, forming a 
covered canal. The torch in the great iron crate over the pilot-house 
was filled with pitch-pine and lighted ; the sparks danced and flick- 
ered away into the blackness, startling the herons asleep on one leg, 
and giving glimpses of cypress swamps or vistas up some tributary or 
everglade. Often the little river broadened into a pool or lake where 
the trees still grew knee-deep in the water or their twisted roots sug- 
gested an arniy of writhing snakes worthy the imagination of a 
Dore. 

The little steamer was a stern-propeller, built especially for this 
river, with a wheel-house high up forward, a little deck aft, and four 
state-rooms between. Only Mrs. Morse and Aunt Pen tried these 
state-rooms until morning; the others sat through the night fascinated, 
by the weird effects. 

The Doctor did not fail to improve his opportunity. He saw that 
Madeleine was impressed by the strangeness of the scene, and he strove 
to connect himself with it by descanting volubly upon its beauties, and 
b}- drawing comparisons between this experience and moonlight nights 



i:i|jl];j!|jj|j||j)j(iji|iffilii;i;il;ll(!rffi rn'iTT-Tip' 



J,l||l 



■^■%i: 



'*li|i':S: 




J¥ll 



UP THE OCKLAWAHA. 



97 



in Venice. He shrewdly thought that if he could become so identified 
with this night that whenever it was recalled he would seem a part 
of the experience, he would have scored a considerable advantage. 

The Doctor had another important circumstance in his favor. 
Madeleine, like nearly all college girls, placed an undue importance 
upon intellect and culture. She told herself that the mind was every- 
thing, and that mental graces were far to be preferred to bodily ones. 
She was punishing herself secretly for having been pleased by the 
Captain's prepossessing appearance, his manly carriage, his frank, boy- 
ish smile, and even his courage, which she told herself was purely 
physical. His education at West Point had indeed been more severe 
than the Doctor's college-skimming; but the Doctor quoted glibly 
from the classics, was an empyric in science, and a showy pretender 
in history. Madeleine had not discovered his shallowness, and was 
now conscientiously attempting to force herself to endure him. Cleo- 
patra poked covert fun at his littleness, and quoted such lines as — 

" With his fine white teeth, and liis cheek like a rose, 
And liis neat cravat and his diamond pin, 
And the nice little mustache under his nose, 
And the dear little tuft on the tip of his chin." 

But that was of no consequence. Madeleine analyzed laboriously 
the entire picture, and told herself that it was not derogatory to have 
fine teeth or a fresh complexion, or to dress carefully ; and as to being 
small of stature, Isaac Watts was .a little man, and so was many an- 
other giant of intellect. As to moral and heart qualities, she gave him 
the credit for possessing all that was so delightfully described in " Sir 
Galahad." She was angry with the Captain for assuming, as she be- 
lieved, a seriousness which he did not feel, and leading her to speak 
of her most sacred aspirations, perhaps only to make her a jest at 
the club-house. With her resentment was mingled a suspicion that 
as she had overrated the Captain, so she had possibly underrated the 
Doctor. 

7 



gS THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

She gave herself up now to the glamour of the night. It was 
the Doctor's good star that glanced on them through the rifts in the 
overhanging branches. Cleopatra, brought out her guitar and played 
and sang Spanish serenades, — light, lilting love-songs, with ringing- 
choruses, — " Teresita Mia," and college ditties such as are sung on 
moonlight nights by the students of Salamanca. 

Cleo was chatting with Uncle Jonah at a little distance, and the 
Doctor said very softly in Madeleine s ear, " Why not drift on thus 
forever.-^" and Madeleine knew that he did not mean that they should 
spend the remainder of their lives in excursion trips up and down the 
Ocklawaha ; and with the comj3rehension of what he did mean, came 
the swift conviction of how impossible it would be. 

Before she could speak, Cleopatra drew her arm in hers, saying, " It 
is alniost daybreak; we must have a little sleep." 

She tried to realize what had happened, but was too weary ; and 
she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. 

When they awoke, late the following day. they found the boat 
moored in the quiet waters of Silver Spring. After breakfast they 
took row-boats, the better to understand the wonderful clearness and 
depth of this beautiful lake. Madeleine stepped into the skiff with 
her mother and Uncle Jonah. She was a little shy of the Doctor this 
morning, and not quite sure of what he had said or nieant. Had she 
dreamed it.^ Xo ; the Doctor was embarrassed and conscious also. 
How very insignificant he looked, helping Aunt Pen into the boat! 
But then Aunt Pen was really an enormous woman. Now he 
was offering to help Patrick, and he was only up to her shoulder. 
What an al^surd couple they would make marching up the church 
aisle together! Preposterous! How differently things looked by. 
daylight ! 

She turned resolutely to a contemplation of Nature about her. 
For sixty feet one could look straight down through the pellucid 
water to the bottom of the basin. Uncle Jonah dropped coins and 




A CYPRESS SWAMP 



UP THE OCKLAWAHA. 



lOI 



other small objects, and Madeleine held her mother while she watched 
them fluttering slowly to the pebbles which lined this great punch- 
bowl. She was glad to notice how well her mother looked, and she 
clung to her tenderly even after she had ceased to lean over the 
edge of the boat. 

All around the margin of the lake the tropical vegetation framed 
the lovely mirror, — oaks, cypresses, sweet-gums, willows, m.agnolias, 
and palms festooned with luxuriant vines, with mistletoe and the gray 
drapery of the Spanish moss. 

" It makes me think of Druids' beards," said Madeleine. 

" Or the tails of Bo-peep's sheep," said Cleopatra, mischievously. 

" It makes excellent mattresses," said Uncle Jonah., 
prosaically. " They have a factory for preparing it for 
upholstery purposes at one of the river towais." 

" There is another golden variety," said the Doctor, 
"called Woman's Hair." 

They drifted about in their tiny skiffs, now- floating 
lazily in a bed of lily-pads, now darting down a shadowy 
lagoon a little way into the jungle, startling some wild 
turkeys and themselves frightened by the plunge from 
the bank into the water of a huge turtle, which, as Cleo- 
patra said, "might just as well have been an alligator." 
" I wonder W'hether this mao-nificent wild conser- 

O 

vatory will ever be drained and planted and staked 
out into miserable little town-lots," mused Madeleine. 

" I hardly think there is any immediate danger," 

replied Cleopatra, dryly, " that the crowded city poor 

will steal aw^ay the homes of the dear lovely little 

alligators." 

Madeleine laughed. " But surely there is room for both in our 

wide country; and just to wander through such a natural park as 

this is a great privilege. How beautiful Silver Spring must have been 




A FLORIDA TYPE. 



lo: 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



before man ever found it; when it really belonged to the deer and 
the other shv creatures of the wood. Do vou know I fancy this must 
have been the P^ountain of Youth which Ponce de Leon heard of." 

"That idea has been advanced," said the Doctor, " but I fear it 
can never be definitely proved." 

At the steamer wharf Cleopatra found opportunity to use her 
camera, and obtained a number of new Florida types, — negroes bus- 
ily lading the boat or lazily looking on, too well-to-do for active 

exertion. A benevolent-appearing 
man in a broad hat and light duster, 
who was to drive them across the 
country to an inland town, was great- 
ly interested in the photography, and 
Cleopatra unstrapped her album for 
his inspection. He could not under- 
stand the instantaneous process, and 
certain views of persons and animals 
in motion puzzled him completely. 

" Used to take tin-types myself," 
he explained. " Never could keep 
folks still, specially babies." 

He evidently thought the Doctor 
was guying him w'hen he was in- 
formed that photographs were now 
taken in ^-(jVo P'^'^"^ ^^ "^ second. 

" It does seem incredible," said 
Cleopatra ; " but more wonderful 
things than this have been accomplished. You know there is a 
theory that the eye retains for a moment the image which is formed 
upon it bv light. I remember reading a story of a murdered man's 
eye being photographed and the portrait of his murderer found 
within it. Well, that is quite possible; for I have heard recently that 




TOO wi:ll-to-uo for kxkrtiox. 



UP THE OCKLAWAHA. 



105 



a fly was killed in front of a cat, and one of its microscopic eyes 
photographed, and the image of the cat found within it." 

The man in the duster hemmed softly. " Next thing that chap 
will photograph the eye of a needle," he said, " and tell us he has 
found the camel in it." 

He had a peculiar dry chuckle, and his closely shaven face dis- 
played a quantity of good-natured lines formed by continual smiling. 

" I wonder what his business is," whispered Cleopatra. " Did you 
ever see a jollier countenance } " 

As they piled into the spring-wagon 
• and buckboard waiting for their trans- 
portation. Uncle Jonah asked if he was 
connected with the hotel to which they 
were going. 

'' Well, sorter," he replied ; "leastways 
the hotel 's connected with me. I own 
it and a good share of the balance of 
the town." 

As they drove on, the wild character 
of the woods disappeared, and orange 
groves took their place. 

" That 's my land," he remarked ; 
" I 've got it pretty well put down to oranges, and I ain't no fault 
to find with the crop this year." 

" What a contrast he is to the Sour-Orange Man we saw at Mr. 
Tait's ! " said Cleopatra in a low voice ; and almost as if he had heard 
her their new friend continued, — 

" Sweet oranges is the payingest crop there is. There 's all the 
differ between oranges that there is 'twixt humans. I hain't no use for 
a sour orange or a sour-tempered man. They calls me the 'Sweet- 
Orange Man' about these parts; an' I dunno as it s meant so, but I 
takes it as a compliment. ' Vinegar never catches flies,' says I, 




THE SWEET-ORANGE MAN. 



I06 THREE VASSAR GIELS AT HOME. 

an" a good-natured man generally catches all the luck that 's 
going." 

The Sweet-Orange Man's estimate of himself was not overdrawn. 
It was to buy land that Uncle Jonah had taken this trip ; and before 
he left the region he had yielded to the wiles of the good-humored 
speculator, and had invested largely in orange plantations. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



A CAMP-MEETING AND A GREAT EMERGENCY. 




HAT evening they attended a negro camp-meeting. 
What a weird sight it was, — a sea of dusky faces 
lighted by flaring torches, the impassioned words 
and 2:estures of Brother Cheer-the-mourners-Rouse- 
the-sinners Rojoinson, the gray-haired pastor, the 
groans and fervent amens from .the congregation ! 
They were singing, as the visitors took their places, a strange wailing 
song, swelling and falling like the wind in a pine forest, — 

'■ Uid you eber liear the hammers ring 
As cley nailed our Sabeyer down, 

Chilleren ? 
Day nailed our Sabeyer down ; 

He died to' you. an' he died fo' me, 
An' he died fo' us all on Calvary, 

Chilleren ! 
He died fo' de whole roun' worl". 

'■ Uid n' you promise de Lord to take care ob de lambs, 
An' bring 'em at de welcome day to his ban's, 

Chilleren, 
Who died fo' de whole roun' worl'? 
He died fo' you," etc. 

And now the old pastor rose and announced his text, " By dere 
fruits you shall know dem." " Chilleren," he said, " what you done 
coriie here for ? Yo' ole mammy wid de misery in yo' knees an' only 



io8 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



a few mo' steps to toddle ; yo' sinner man sittin' on de seats of do- 
nuffin'; yo' peart young niggers songunnery in yo' views an' mighty 
stroblous in carryin' on 'em out, — what you done come here for? " 

" We'se come to git reHgion," repHed a voice from the benches. 

" Praise de Lord ! " repHed the 
preacher, " praise de Lord if dat am 
so ! Now, how yo' gwine to get it ? 
What yo' reckon reHgion am, any- 
how ? Chill'en, jus yo' Hsten to 
me, an' I '11 
tell yo'. Uis 
ye re am a 
fruit - grow- 
in' country; 
an' from de 

many 'lusions to vineyards an' fruit- 
trees, I reckon dat Jerusalem was 
a fruit-packin' town, pretty much 
de same kine of a place as Oceola, 
an' in de country roun' dare was 
lots of orange plantations, jes' yf 
as yo' see 'em here. Least- 
ways, de Marster he was al- 




AT THE CAMP-MEETING 



ways talkin' about de fruit busi- 
ness. And when he tried to 'splain 
what religion was, he tole 'em it 
was fruit-raisin'. Sez he, ' When I 
sets out a little seedlin', I don't 

'spect no fruit on it the fust year; but I nusses it up tree, five, 
sebben year, an' graffs it, an' buds it, and den ef it don't bear no fruit 
I cuts it down. It's nuffin' but a cucumber ob de groun'.' De Mar- 
ster been more patient wid mose of yo' brederen an' sisteren dan dat. 



A CAMF-MEETING AND A GREAT EMERGENCY. 



109 



How ole is yo', Libery Johnson ? Is n't yo' more 'n sebben years ole ? 
An' what kine of fruit yo' done b'ar fo' de Marster ? Nufifin' but a 
crop of mons'ous wild grapes, wid yo' sky-larkin' about to balls, an' 
yo' begrudgefulness ob fine close, an' yo' trifiin', simple carr'in's-on. 
'Spec' de Marster sen' along Gabriel pretty soon wid a big axe to chop 
yo' down fo' fiahwood, — only yo' too green for dat, eben. 

" Yo', Maum Phyllis, what fruit yo' been b'arin' fo' de Marster all 
dese years ? What kine ob fruit is dem wrong tales yo' done tole 'bout 
your neighbors ? An' yo' meanness, an' uncomfor'bleness to your 
fam'ly ? I calls dat a crop ob de sourress kine ob persimmons, I does. 
What kine ob a face you reckon de Marster gwine to make when he 
tas'e 'em? But doan you cry an' lament yo' undone case, Maum 
Phyllis. Dar am hope fo' you. When de fross come, den de persim- 
mons sweeten up ; an' de fross ob ole age am a-grizzlin' yo' ha'r, an' 
de snow ob deff a-beatin' on de soundin'-post ob yo' head. See to it 
dat yo' persimmonses — I means your words an' yo' actions — is a 
sweet'nin' under dat fross fo' de Marster. 

" Yo', Daddy Tucker, what fruit yo' done b'ar? Yo' is a church- 
member what pray mighty loud in de class-room fur de widder an' de 
orphanless, an' yo prays pretty much like dis, — 'O Lord, gibbin' doth 
not impoverish thee, neither doth withholdin' enrich thee ; but gibbin' 
doth impoverish us, an' withholdin' doth enrich us ; darfore yo' shell 
out, good Lord, an' hulp dis yere case.' What sorter fruit yo' t'ink yo' 
am ? Yo', sah, am a water-million, mighty roun' an' promissin' to de 
eye, but so green an' hard at heart as not fitten to gib de pigs. 

" Yo', Mrs. Aristotle Williams, yo' need n't shout ' Glory ! ' an' be so 
tickled at what I juss said. Yo' alius wants yo' name to head ebery 
perscription, whedder it am to fricassee de church or to raffle fo' a 
prize turkey. Yo' likes to come teeterin' up to de altar fibe times 
durin' meetin' wid yo' contribution, 'stead ob sendin' up a quarter by 
de Deacon oncet fo' all. Yo' so meally-moufed talkin' 'bout yo' sperit- 
ual 'speriences one would tink you jus' ready for to sprout yo' wings. 



I JO THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

An' whar yo' done git dat money yo' make such a show ob gibbin' to 
de Lord ? 'Spect dose pullets what Mister Brown loss miglit tell sum- 
fin' 'bout it. Do yo' know what kine o' fruit yo' words an' actions is 
like ? Yo' words is like a great ober-ripe pawpaws, soff as sqush ; 
and yo' actions is like rotten bananers what makes one sick to 
counterplate. 

" But, sisteren and brudderen, I see many a saint here who 's borne 
fruit fo' de Lord ob a diff'ren' market-value from dat, — good, profitable 
trees in de nursery ob divine grace, what hab gone on quietly raisin' 
fruit all dese years. An' dat fruit it am canned an' preserbed an' pickled 
'o-ainst dat great day. 'Pears like I has a sight into de store-room ob 
hebben, an' I sees de shelbs jus' a-groanin' wid tumblers ob guava jelly, 
an' jars ob brandied peaches, an' preserbed figs, an' marmalade just 
candied wid de sugar ob righteousness and lub, an' growin' sweeter an' 
sweeter wid de ages. De good book says, ' By dere fruit you shall 
know dem.' An' I 'pears to see de labels on dose jars : ' Sister Milly's 
Strawberry Jam,' — dat was de good deed she done all unbeknownst 
to any one; ' Brudder Pete's preserbed ginger,' — and nobody but de 
Lord an' Pete know wid what self-sacrifice dat ginger-root was done 
made fit for de Marster's table. 

" Brudderen an' sisteren, let us all go home to our fruit-raisin', an' 
may we all be preserbed at last ! Dat 's what de good book say, — 'De 
Lord preserbe you ; ' but, sinnah, you'se got to tote up some sort ob 
fruit dat's worf preserbin'. De conflagration will now join in singin' — 

• What kine ob slippers do de angels wear 
As dey walks about on de upper air .'' ' " 

Cleopatra had been choking with suppressed merriment; but as 
they walked back to the hotel Madeleine said : " I don't see how you 
can laugh. There is real truth in it, after all. It is only a homely 
amplification of the Master's thought. I 'm afraid, Cleo, that all the 
fruit I have ever borne would make an infinitesimally small pot of 
jam." 




iiiiilM^^ 



A CAMP-MEETING AND A GREAT EMERGENCY. 113 

" Why, Madeleine," said Cleopatra, " you are shivering ! And how 
cold your hands are ! " 

" Oh, no," replied the young girl ; " I am burning up. Just place 
your hand on my forehead." 

"She is feverish," said Cleopatra. "Dr. Pettyman, do you think 
she is going to be sick ? " 

The Doctor felt her pulse, and drew her shawl more closely about 
her. " She has a chill," he said. " The night air of this swampy dis- 
trict is really dangerous." 

" I am glad mother did not come out," moaned Madeleine. " Oh, 
my head, my head ! " 

They hastened home. Quinine and other remedies were found; 
and the next morning, as Madeleine was decidedly better, it was de- 
termined to start on their return trip down the Ocklawaha. 

The Doctor was assiduous in his attentions ; but no opportunity 
was given him to continue tlie topic which he had broached as they 
came up the river. The glamour was gone ; and the whole effect of 
the scenery was very different by garish da)'light. Still, there was a 
wild beauty and strangeness about it which was very fascinating. 
What was before only a confused and shadowy mass now showed itself 
in all the detail of luxuriant tropical foliage. " The Critter," who stood 
in the bow of the boat, kept a good look-out for alligators ; and the 
Doctor handed Madeleine his revolver, that she might be ready for a 
shot when " The Critter " gave the signal. At length the sharp eyes of 
the old hunter descried one wriggling out from under a mass of tree 
roots, and Madeleine and Cleopatra both " shot at it " at the same 
time. Cleopatra was the more successful ; for while Madeleine s 
bullets plashed harmlessly into the water, Cleopatra's shot with her 
detective camera gave her a good photograph of the great saurian. 
(See the frontispiece.) 

Later in the afternoon Madeleine went down to the lower deck 
with Uncle Jonah to see " The Critter's " collection of baby alligators. 



I i^ THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

The conversation immediately turned to Yulee Ponce. " She 's a likely 
oirl," said " The Critter," " and plucky as she is likely. When the ' Yel- 
low Jack ' raged in St. Augustine, and every one was pulling up stakes 
and clearing the country, her mother and she stayed by. Mrs. Ponce, 
she was one of the best nusses we had. She was sent for far and near; 
and she was at it day and night till, just as the fever seemed to be 
leaving the town, down she come herself ; and then the old man took 
it. He's part Injun, an' that accounts for his.bein' so queer and quiet 
like, — lazy, some folks call him; but see him in the woods an' you 
would n't think him lazy. But he 's sorter used to giving up, an' he 
giv' right' up when the fever struck him. Yulee, she nussed her 
mother and father through it, and she wa'n't but a little slip of a 
gal then, only ten year old. Well, sir, if you '11 believe me, she never 
took it ; and her mother got well, though she had it the wuss kind, — 
all the bad symptoms, except the vomito and the ' mieux de mort' 
Yaller? I see her one day — I did their markettin' for 'em — an' 
she was as yaller as a pumpkin. There 's a sailor sick now in 
St. Augustine with something like yellow fever. He come from 
Demarara in that very schooner that we went to Anastasia Island in. 
They 're trying to keep it hushed up for fear there '11 be a panic. 
The man boarded with some folks that lived m a house that belongs 
to Mr. Tait. When he was taken sick they just up and scooted, — 
just cleared for the North, leavin' the poor feller alone in the house. 
Mr. Tait, he heard of it, and he drove right over to Mrs. Ponce's 
and got her to move in and nuss him. She 's there now, I reckon. 
I see Ponce 'fore I come away. He said the man had the jarndice ; 
but you can't fool me. If they called it yellow fever, there 'd be the 
biggest scatterment from the hotels ever you see." 

Madeleine was interested. " Is yellow fever contagious } " she 
asked. 

" Well, some say 't is, and some ag'in say 't is n't. I 've know it to 
be taken by men who went on board ships to clean 'em out. Clothes 




FLYING SQUIRRELS. 



A CAMF-MEEThXG AND A GREAT EMERGENCY. 



117 



give it sometimes ; and sometimes nusses can take care of the wuss 
cases and never catch it. It 's cur'us, it is." 

Madeleine went to her state-room, and opening her toilet-case took 
out the fine soft sponge which she had obtained on the schooner. She 
had already used it in bathing, having first washed it until not a par- 
ticle of the musty odor which had at first clung to it could be perceived ; 
but now she dropped both the sponge and the bathing-case from her 
state-room window with an expression of horror. Then she sat down, 
and holding her head in her hands tried hard to think. 

She had been exposed to yellow fever; of this she was certain. 
Could it be that her shivering fits were the premonitory symptoms 
of this dread disease } She did not care greatly for herself ; but the 
rest, and above all her mother, must be shielded. Her thoughts would 
not come readily, and her head ached as though a heavy weight were 
pressing it down. Some plan must be resolved upon at once, and yet 
she could not think. 

Cleopatra was calling her, and confused and dismayed she went on 
deck. The others pointed out the flying squirrels which were leaping 
from limb to limb among the trees on the shore. There seemed to be 
a colony of them emigrating from one locality to another. 

" Will you shoot at them .-^ '' asked the Doctor. 

" No, indeed," Madeleine replied. " The pretty little creatures 
have as much right to their lives as I have to mine. My heart re- 
proaches me for even firing at that old alligator. He must lead such 
a pleasurable, cool, oozy existence in this shady aquarium ! " 

Her hands were burning, and it seemed to her at the moment that 
the alligator's haunt must be the most enviable place in the world. 
She took a book and seated herself on the little after-deck, where no 
wandering wind could blow from her toward any one of the party. 
Here she insured solitude for a time by pretending to read, while she 
vainly tried to puzzle out a course of action. 

As they neared Palatka, the Doctor, who had discovered her retreat. 



ii8 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



came to her, and began to touch once more upon the subject to which 
lie had alluded on their voyage up the river. Madeleine onl}' vaguely 
comprehended what he was saying. 

" You do not answer me," he said at last. " Surely such a question 
deserves a reply." 

" I beg your pardon," she said, with a start. " But what were you 



say mi 



? " 




The Doctor bit his lip and colored. " I said that I would give my 

life for you, and asked you to allow me to 
pledge my utmost devotion to your service." 
It was out at last, and the Doctor 
could not have proposed in a better time. 
Even the romance of the theatrical sur- 
roundings of the night voyage were as 
nothing to her present great need. 

She looked at him with dry, glittering- 
eyes. "You say you would risk your life 
for me } " 

He thought her manner tragic, but 
responded effusively, " Certainly, with the 
utmost pleasure." 
'" I may test }our offer," she replied. " Wait ; I will give you my 
answer b}' and by." 

A benevolent-appearing individual with elephantine cars now ap- 
proached them, and remarked : " I live here at Palatka. I'm a justice 
of the peace, and would be glad to be of any service to you during 
your stay." 

Madeleine looked at him uncomprchendingly, and walked away. 
The Doctor replied : '' We are not meditating any offence against 
the public peace." 

The man's smile rip])led all over his features. " Oh no, sir ; I 
.should say not, sir. I have watched you with a fatherly interest, 



Tin; jusTict; of the peaci:. 



A CAMP-MEETING AND A GREAT EMERGENCY. 



119 



SO to speak, during tlie entire voyage. I hope you '11 excuse the 
remark, sir. I only mention it because there's another justice at 
Palatka, and he charges fifty cents more for marrying a couple than 
I do." 

At another time the Doctor would have taken offence ; but he 
saw that the man did not mean to be insulting, and he was very 
happy, — for he had told her, and she had not rejected him. 

The confusion of arrival at Palatka now broke up all conversation. 
Madeleine, with her mortal secret locked behind her usual calmness, 
walked rapidly somewhat in advance of the rest to the hotel. They 
had planned to spend the night here ; but at the office a telegram was 
handed to Mrs. Morse. " Your father has sprained his ankle," she 
said to Madeleine. " He wants me to come home directly." 

A sudden light swept across the girl's face. " Of course you must 
go, and at once ! Poor papa, how he needs you ! " 

" But I can't go yet," said Uncle Jonah. " I promised Mr. Tait to 
take a little trip with him to look at land before we went North." 

"And I must see Yulee Ponce again, and help her for a week or 
two to fit her for Vassar," said Madeleine; "but that will not hinder 
Aunt Pen and mother and Cleopatra going right on to-night to Jack- 
sonville, and taking the train for the North to-morrow. Uncle Jonah 
and I can follow you soon." 

Aunt Pen, who was tired of sweet-potato pie and longed for her 
customary six desserts, was very willing to return to the North. Cap- 
tain Saunters had disappointed her, and she considered him unworthy 
the privations she had endured in his behalf. 

Cleopatra looked at Madeleine with a pained, wonder. "I would 
rather stay with you," she said ; " and I think you are downright un- 
kind to post me off" in this way." 

" Yes," urged Mrs. Morse, " Pen and I will make our way very 
nicely, and I think it would be better for your friend to stay with you." 

While the others were at dinner Madeleine took Cleopatra out 



I20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

upon the piazza. " Clco," she said, " I wish you would trust me for 
once. I want you to go with Mamma ; I cannot tell you the reason, 
but our friendship ought to stand as much as that." 

Cleo wound an arm around the resisting girl. " Something is the 
matter with you, Madeleine ; you don't act like yourself. I believe you 
need me, and I am going to stay." 

Madeleine twisted herself out of her friend's embrace. " You must 
go, Cleo," she whispered ; " it may be death for you to remain. Look 
at my face and hands ! " 

" Oh, that 's it ! " Cleopatra replied coolly, evidently much relieved. 
" You are sick ; then of course you want me. I have been watching 
that viperous little Doctor, and 1 thought he had something to do 
with your lunacy. Yulee and I will take care of you, and we will have 
you well in no time." 

" But don't you see } can't you understand } It is yellow fever, 
Cleo, and you have no right to endanger yourself. Don't breathe a 
syllable of this to mother, but get her away to-night. I will go to 
Yulee. Her mother is a trained nurse ; they will take me in, and I 
shall be well cared for," 

Cleopatra looked very serious, but she did not falter. " I don't be- 
lieve it 's any such thing. You are a little bilious, that 's all ; but if it 
were small-pox I 'd stay by you just the same. Now, don't make any 
fuss about it, or I '11 betray the entire .scheme." 

The Doctor approached, with Aunt Pen's orders to bring the young 
ladies to supper. " Will you kindly escort mother and Aunt Pen to 
Jacksonville," asked Madeleine, "and see them started for the North.'* 
We will spend the night here, and go on with Uncle Jonah to-morrow 
to St. Augustine." 

" Where I trust I may have the privilege of seeing you," said the 
Doctor. 

In the hurry of Mrs. Morse's leave-taking Madeleine's appearance 
was not commented upon until just as her mother parted from her she 



A CAMP-MEETING AND A GREAT EMERGENCY. 12 I 

said, " Do be careful of yourself, dear child, and don't study too hard ; 
you are looking very badly." 

Madeleine murmured that it was only a headache ; and Cleopatra 
cried assuringly, as the boat left the dock, that she would take good care 
of Madeleine and give her " loads of quinine." 



CHAPTER IX. 




IN THE FURNACE. 

lADELEINE was so ill that she could hardly muster 
strength to return to the hotel. The next morning 
she was in a high fever, and it was out of the ques- 
,ywj9^ ,jKj^ tion to attempt to continue their journey that day. 

^^-'SL/U Uncle Jonah was not greatly alarmed. "You've 

got a touch of the ague," he said ; and he adminis- 
tered a large dose of quinine, foretelling that she 
would be better on the morrow. 

And Uncle Jonah was right. The fever was evi- 
dently of a remittent type ; and the next day, though 
quite weak, Madeleine was able to go on to St. Augustine. 

Madeleine held ujd bravely before Uncle Jonah, who bade her 
good-by in Yulee's little shop, as he intended to leave town early the 
next morning on his Indian River expedition. The good man had no 
idea how very ill his niece was ; but he shook her kindly by the hand, 
and told her to be careful of herself. Madeleine smiled feebly, but 
did not return her uncle's kiss ; and when he had crossed the street 
to his hotel she turned to Yulee with a piteous expression, and tried 
to speak, but found it impossible. Overtaxed nature asserted itself, 
and she sank fainting into Yulee's arms. 

The two girls carried her into Yulee's room, and laid her upon the 
little bed. " It is but just to you," said Cleopatra, " for me to tell you 



IN THE FURNACE. I 23 

that she probably has the yellow fever. It is very possible that you 
would rather we should be isolated in some other house. Money is 
of no consequence at such a time as this, but there are some things 
which even money cannot buy." 

Yulee stopped her. "You say right, money is of no consequence. 
I take her not for ze money, but for love. I know all ; see have write 
me, — I have justly receive the letter. I will nurse her so careful. 
You need not to cry; see sail not die." 

" But your shop — who will take care of \0. " 

" Ze shop can be close ; or if you will, if you would like to be near, 
you can mind ze shop. You know you cannot stay wiz your friend. 
I have had ze fever. I have no danger; but you — " 

" I cannot leave her," Cleopatra replied hurriedly. •' I have been 
already exposed ; it does not matter." 

" You do not understand ze danger; it is not ze contagion of seeing 
one time or two time in ze day, it is to stand alway over ze sick 
person. You may come to her sometimes, but you can help much 
more to do ze outside errand, — to go for ze doctor, ze medeseen, 
ze necessaires. If you could now go for my muzzer it would help 
much more as to stand here." 

" I will go," Cleopatra replied obediently. 

The two girls seemed to have exchanged natures. Cleopatra wil- 
ful, commanding, was suddenly docile and meek; and little Yulee 
Ponce, the wistful, timid girl, assumed the generalship of the situa- 
tion by the divine right of knowing just the thing which should be 
done, combined with the will and power to do it. 

Cleopatra hurried through the darkening streets to the little house 
where Mrs. Ponce was nursing the sick sailor. 

She heard Cleopatra's startling news with a calmness which the 
girl mistook for stolidity. " Tell her," she said, " zat my man is besser. 
I fine some uzzer to nurse him ; I come home to-morrow." 

Cleopatra next went for a physician. The one whom Yulee had 



124 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

recommended was out ; and leaving a note for him, she hurriedly or- 
dered ice and made a few other purchases, returning home so weary 
that she could scarcely stand. 

Yulee heard her report with interest. " And now you must take 
some repose to yourself," she said. " Look ! see does sleep. I will 
sit wiz her zee night; see does not require you." 

Cleopatra looked at Madeleine. She was indeed asleep, though 
from time to time she tossed and moaned uneasily. She opened 
her eyes as her friend kissed her. " Cleo," she said, " if I should die, 
tell Captain Saunters — " Then the lids fell, and the rest ended .in 
an inarticulate murmur. 

"What shall I tell him, dear?" Cleopatra asked; but Yulee 
placed her finger on her lip. 

"Hush!" she said; "see sleep, see must not be disturb; it is 
ze only hope." Then with a strong, steady hand she led the un- 
willing girl from the room. 

" I will lie down on the lounge here," Cleopatra consented, " and 
you must call me if you need me." 

She thought she would close her eyes for only a few moments, but 
it was broad daylight before the wearied girl awoke. There was an 
appetizing odor of coffee, and Mrs. Ponce looked in to say, " Ze break- 
fass, he is ready." 

It was Madeleine s bad day, and the fever was now at its height. 
She was delirious, and talked wildly and incoherently, now of their 
trip up the Ocklawaha, now of the camp-meeting and the negro min- 
ister's sermon, and again of their plans for Yulee's education ; and here 
she seemed most sane. " I wrote him," she said, " that I did not want 
his help for Yulee, I would do it all myself; and now if I am going to 
die, I can't. ' Fruit fo' de Marster, — what fruit yo done bore fo' de 
Marster.?' Apples of Sodom, fair to look upon, but ashes to the 
taste. — only ashes ! Ice, ice ! please give me more ice ! See the 
al]igatf)rs! what a nice, cool, lo\'ely time they are having in the shady 



IN THE FURNACE. I 25 

water ! Oh, Patrick, please tell Captain Saunters ! You will, won't 
you, Cleo dear ? " 

And again Cleopatra asked, her heart wrung with anguish, "What 
shall I say to him, Madeleine darling?" But Madeleine could not tell. 

The doctor had not come, and Cleopatra went out in search of 
him. He was at home now ; but when he understood the nature of 
the disease, he refused to take charge of the case. Disappointed and 
troubled, she turned from the door. To whom could she apply ? 

Just then a carriage passed her, turned, and drove to meet her. It 
was Dr. Pettyman, looking in the large barouche, as she afterward 
remarked, like a very small kernel rattling about in a very large nut- 
shell. He alighted briskly, and said that he had 'but just arrived in 
St. Augustine, having seen Mrs. Morse and her sister w^ell started 
for the North. " And now," he remarked effusively, " what can I do 
for the regal Cleopatra and the charming Miss Madeleine ? I am 
entirely at your service ; name but your orders, and I fly to execute 
them." 

Cleopatra looked at the smirking little man ; she was very averse 
to applying to him, and yet he was a physician and their need was 
great. " Dr. Pettyman," she said, " we are in great trouble ; Madeleine 
is very ill." 

Instantly the shrewd little man comprehended that here was 
another opportunity. " Step right into the carriage," he said, " and 
take me to her. I am only too thankful to be of the slightest aid." 

Relieved and grateful, Cleopatra, as they rode, told him the entire 
story ; and as she did so the expression of the Doctor's countenance 
changed. " Yellow fever ! " he gasped ; " that puts a very different face 
on the matter. You ought to have a specialist, some one who has had 
experience in the disease ; " and he named a noted physician. 

" He is not in St. Augustine." 

" Then Dr. ." 



He has refused to take the case. 



126 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

'' Dr. refused ! Then it must be a malignant case;" and he 

inquired minutely into the symptoms. The carriage, stood before the 
door, and Cleopatra sprang out ; but the Doctor hesitated. " I have 
an important engagement," he stammered. 

"Surely nothing more important than this! Dr. Pettyman, you 
are not going to desert us ! " 

"Desert you .^ Oh no, but I think I had better drive around 
to the hotel for my medicine case. I will be back soon ; " and with- 
out entering the house Dr. Pettyman was gone. 

Madeleine was, if possible, worse ; her cries for water were piteous. 
Mrs. Ponce fed her with chopped ice patiently. Yulee had lain down 
for a little rest. There seemed to be nothing to do until the Doctor 
came ; and Cleopatra went into the shop, and patiently showed feather 
and palm work to the tourists who happened in, and sold sea-beans 
and pressed algte in a dazed way, often making wrong change. 
People wondered who that refined-looking shop-girl was, who was so- 
very stupid in lier arithmetic. No one came in whom she knew^ 
excepting the little darky with flowers, which she purchased and 
carried in to Madeleine. 

The sick girl opened her eyes languidly. "Did you tell him.'*'* 
she asked. 

"Tell who? tell what.'*" Cleopatra urged; but the question only 
set her into wilder delirium. And still the Doctor did not come. 
A little past noon a messenger brought Cleopatra a note. 

Dear Miss Atchison, — I am telegraphed for; important business calls 
mc suddenly to the North. I am sorry not to be able to remain and devote 
m\-sclf to Miss Morse. I trust she will endure this severe ordeal. Her remark- 
able constitution is on her side. 

With deepest regret, hastily yours, J. Pettvman.. 

A smile of fine scorn curled Cleopatra's lip. The Doctor had 
proved himself a broken reed. She did not believe in the telegram ; 
it was only a ruse. He was a coward, and had basely deserted them. 



IN THE FURNACE. 



127 



Meantime they must have medical advice. Mrs. Ponce asked her 
when she thoufjht the Doctor would come, and she could hear Made- 
leine moaning. " Oh ! 
what shall I do '^ " she 
cried impotently ; " per- 
haps I had l^etter tele- 
graph for her mother, 
after all. It is just pos- 
sible that her Uncle Jo- 
nah is still at the hotel. 
I will go and see." 

But Uncle Jonah had 
left a few hours previous. 
Despairing, almost des- 
perate, Cleopatra walked 
down the street. To 
whom could she apply } 
Oh for some old friend 
in whom she could trust ! 
Suddenly the words of a hymn passed through her mind, — 

" Human hearts and looks deceive me ; 
Thou art not, Hke them, untrue." 

The doors of the old Spanish Cathedral, built so long ago, stood 
always open for prayer. She entered and knelt before the white 
shrine of Our Lady, and prayed earnestly for help. The silver lamp 
swung censer-like overhead; the coolness and quiet of the place re- 
freshed her, and she came out determined to apply to every physician in 
the place, full of faith now that some one would be sent to help them. 

Suddenly she was startled by an exclamation from some one in 
a dark doorway, and turning saw Captain Saunters. He stepped 
forward eagerly, with such a look of delight that Cleopatra had not 
the heart to rebuff him. " You don't look much like an angel," she 




CATHEDRAL AT ST. AUGUSTINE. 



128 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 







said, " but perhaps the Lord has sent you all the same. Can you 
tell me of some physician with conscience enough not to refuse 

a danoerous case ? " 

The young man's face blanched. " Is 
Miss Madeleine sick ? " 

" Yes ; yellow fever. You look fright- 
ened ; every one is. I don't ask you to come 
near us, only to direct me to some doctor." 

" But I shall come near you, and I am 
not afraid except for her. Where are you 
stopping ? " 
" At Yulee's." 

" I will be there in fifteen minutes with 
our surgeon ; he has had experience in the 
very worst epidemics." 

And the Captain was as good as his word. 

In seventeen minutes he strode through the 

curiosity shop with the surgeon, — a sphinx 

in spectacles, which took all expression from his eyes, and gave you 

the feeling that he wore them to mask his opinions. 

Who admitted him or how it happened, Cleopatra did not know ; 
but Captain Saunters stood beside the bed, while the Doctor made 
Ins diagnosis. 

Madeleine recognized him, and asked, " Cleo told you ? " 
" Yes," said the Doctor; and aside to the Captain, " Say yes ; keep 
her mind easy." 

" It is all right," the Captain replied cheerily, though his voice trem- 
bled. She put out her thin yellow hand, and he took it reverently. 
" Now go away," said the surgeon ; " you bother me." 
He went into the shop, where Cleopatra was showing dried grasses- 
to a customer. When the lady had gone he asked, " What was it she' 
wanted vou to tell me .^ " 



'•TURNING, SHE SAW CAPTAIN 
SAUNTERS." 



IN THE FURNACE. 



1 29 




A SPHINX IN SI'KCTACLES." 



" I do not know," Cleopatra replied, with tears in her eyes ; '• per- 
haps we can find out to-morrow." 

The Captain came and went, bringing comforts, Cleopatra found 
hini a great help. He did not again attempt to penetrate farther than 
the little shop, but she knew it was from 
delicacy and not from cowardice. It was 
strange that what had incensed her so much 
no longer troubled her. She did think of it, 
but with that divine forgiveness which gentle 
women exercise so inconsistently, now con- 
doning the worst faults and at other times 
visiting the merest peccadillo with merciless 
severity. Having determined to pardon the 
Captain, she did so thoroughly. Her instinct 

told her that he was to be trusted; and so, though her judgment con- 
demned him, woman-like she allowed her instinct to lead her in spite 
of her judgment, and in so doing did not err. Her self-reliance too, 
or rather her reliance on God, returned. He had not left them friend- 
less ; and she made her change with exactitude, and attended to the 
little business with cheerfulness and despatch, as though she had been 
brought up in it. At night Madeleines temperature was lower, and 
she rested more comfortably. The next day it intermitted, as usual ; 
and the surgeon asked more questions, and studied the case more care- 
fully, fixing his astute, impenetrable gaze now on his patient and now 
on Cleopatra. Madeleine was too weak to talk much, and she did 
not refer to the topic which troubled her in her delirious moments. 
She looked up once as Cleopatra bent over her, and asked, " Have 
you written my mother ? Does she know ? " ♦ 

" No," replied Cleopatra ; " and I shall not do so unless you are 
worse." 

A smile of infinite content came into Madeleine's face. " Mother 
must not be troubled," she said. 

9 



I ^o niKi-.r: \ assau i.irls at iiomi:. 

C'lcopalia told ihr Hoc toi llic sick girl's earnest desire that lier 
mother should not be alarnud. "1 am afi.iid, sir," she said, " that I 
may be doing wrong in \ielding to her wishes. If her life is in 
danger hi-r mother ought to be sent for. I'ell me, please, if you think 
she should be informed." 

'• \'ou neetl not telegraph at present," the Doctor replied; " 1 think 
we are going to i)ull her through." 

This was encouraging so far as it went; but the next day Mad- 
eleine was worse, — as it seemed to Cleopatra, very much worse. Her 
delirious talk was all of the Heavenly City and of friends who had 
])assed away. She sang feebly snatches of the weird songs which they 
IkuI heard at the camp-meeting. 

'• My sistLM" 's y;()iie to Heaven, 
And 1 want to j^o too, 
For to try on tlie long white robes, 

Cliilleren ! 
l-'or to try on tlie Ion"' wln'tc rolies." 



\\\A again, 



" Oh ! what kind orshppers does de angels wear, 
As (ley walks about on do upper air ?" 



She was not quite sane on her well day, when there was no fever, 
and talked strangely of an angel or to one, — Cleopatra could not make 
out e.xactly which. Several days passed by in this way, Cleopatra 
suffering the keenest anxiety. She wrote to Mrs. Morse that Mad- 
eleine was not well ; but the gocxl lady had no suspicion of the 
furnace through which the girls were passing. 



CHAPTER X. 



CROSSING THE BRIDGP:. 




ADELEINE was in a strange mental condition. It 
seemed to her that she had suffered as much as 
she could endure, and she prayed eagerly for 
release. Death or life, no matter which, — only 
take away this intolerable pain, this thirst un- 
quenchable, with the noise of rushing waters for- 
ever in her ears. Suddenly something seemed to 
snap in her brain, and there was a great calm. 

"The sickness, the nausea, 
The pitiless pain. 
Had ceased with the fever 

That maddened her brain, — 
With the fever called ' Living,' 
That burned in her brain."' 

How glad, how thankful, she was that it was all over! Not for 
worlds woukl she lie down upon that bed again and renew the strug- 
gle ! Her life had been short indeed, but joyous and void of any 
trouble ; she had escaped the evil days of later years. " Whom the 
gods love, die young," she said ; and she thought herself very for- 
tunate. It seemed to her that though she had died, her spirit still 
fiitted about under the gray coquina arches of the old Spanish house. 
She was not shod with the angelic slippers, and could not climb the 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




TALL ANGEL STOOD liKNKATH IT." 



starry stair. Her feet were heavy, 
and when she strove to lift tlicm, 
dragged upon the stone-flagging. 
Why was it, she wondered, that she 
could not go.? She wandered in 
spirit out through the cool, shady 
corridors into the Q:lo\vin2: iiarden. 
The sunshine fell hot upon the dried- 
up fountain over which scarlet cacti 
were clambering. There was a palm 
at the lower end of the garden, and 
she drifted toward it, and strove to 
break off a branch ; but a tall angel 
stood beneath it, who lifted his hand 
in warnino-. 

" First earn your palm," he said. 
" Where are the fruits which your life 
has borne } " « 

" How could I bear fruit ? " she 
replied. " I have died too young. 
What opportunity have I had } " 

"What opportunity.'^" repeated 
the angel ; and he pointed to Yulee, 
who sat braiding palm-strands. 

"She is weeping," said Madeleine; 
"she at least is sorry that I have 
gone." 

" Her tears are not those of grate- 
ful remembrance," replied the angel. 
" She is weeping over disappointed 
hopes. You ])romised to help her to 
an education, did you not } " 



CROSSING THE BRIDGE. i-n 

" I should have made provision for her," Madeleine, or Madeleine's 
ghost, replied, " but I was cut down too suddenly." 

" There was some one else who was willing to help you in your 
good work," continued the angel. 

"I was angry with him," the poor ghost replied, "and wrote him 
that I did not need his help, — that I preferred to do it all myself." 

" What right liad you to refuse what was not to be your own, and 
to leave promises unfulfilled '^ " 

" I had no right," Madeleine's ghost answered humbly ; " let me go 
now and haunt him until he understands that he is to continue my 
work." 

The angel shook his head in pity. " Poor child," he said, " how 
little you understand ! He would not be conscious of your presence 
if you haunted him, as you call it, for years. Many spirits flit about 
the world, but the eyes of the- living are holden, — they cannot see. 
Then, too, he could not do your work for you. He has his own duty 
to perform ; opportunities are sometimes given us but once, and they 
are often given to but one person. It was yours while you lived to 
aid this young girl, and to influence others to aid her ; now that you 
are dead, your aid and influence have alike ceased." 

" There have been people," pleaded Madeleine, " whose influence 
lived after them. I am sure that he remembers me, and would gladly 
do something in my memory. Let me try at least." 

The angel sorrowfully bowed his head ; and Madeleine floated out 
of the garden down King Street, which was bordered with live-oak and 
hung with Spanish moss. No one noticed her as she passed ; and 
she hastened on to the sea-wall, where she had loved to walk. There 
were the quay and the pretty club-house. There were the yachts, 
their white wings folded waiting for the approaching regatta. 

Madeleine's spirit skimmed along the promenade till she found a 
lonely man sitting in an angle of the wall looking away to seaward. 
It was the Captain, and Madeleine knew by a strange spiritual intui- 



in^ THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

tion that he was thinking of her. " She will die," thought the Captain ; 
and Madeleine's ghost heard the thought as distinctly as though it 
were a spoken word. " How lovely, how good, she was ! how kind to 
every one, even to poor little Yulee Ponce ! " 

" No, no ! " cried Madeleine, passionately. " I meant to be good, I 
meant to be kind, but I put it off. You wanted to help me ; will you 
not take up the \\ork where I left \0. " 

" I was not worthy to help her," thought the Captain, "but I shall 
be a better man for having known such a perfect being." 

" Perfect ! " wailed the ghost. " What kindly derision it is ! But 
he says he will be a better man. I wonder what he will do for my 
sake ; will he not think of helping Yulee .? " 

And Saunters, as though in answer to her question, thought on : 
" She was so cultured, so intellectual, such a contrast to Yulee, I 
wonder that I could ever have been charmed by that little ignoramus. 

'And though she was not learned, — well, 
I was not anxious she should grow so. 
I trembled once beneath her spell, 
Whose spelling was extremely so-so.' 

But Madeleine has shown me what a woman ought to be. I shall 
never go near Yulee again. Let her develop into a coarse stupid 
woman like her mother ; it is nothing to me." 

Madeleine's irhost wailed and wruns^ her hands. This, then, was all 
that her memory and influence had done with the Captain. Up there 
in the North she knew that her mother would grieve sincerely. There 
was some money that was to have been her own ; what would be 
done with it? She seemed to see her father and mother talking 
about it together. Her mother wore expensive crapes, and there was 
a look of deep sorrow on her father's face. 

" I never want to touch a penny of Madeleine's money." he said; 
"it shall all be expended in a monunient to her memory. What 
do you think she would have liked .•' ' 



CROSSING THE BRIDGE. I 35 

" Madeleine had a very fastidious taste," Mrs. Morse remarked. 
" Here is a drawing which she made of Yulee Ponce holding a palm- 
branch ; it only needs wings to make a lovely angel. Is it not a most 
aitistic thing.'' " 

" I will try to get one of our best sculptors to carve it. What do 
you say to St. Gaudens } " asked Mr. Morse. 

Madeleine's ghost groaned. 

" Madek^iiie was very fond of Vassar," suggested Mrs. Morse ; 
"perhaps she would have liked something for the college." 

"Mother, darling mother!" cried the ghost in joyful ecstas}' ; 
" you at last are going to guess just what I want." 

" Very well," replied Mr. Morse, in a satisfied tone which implied 
that he hit upon exactly the right thing. " We will have it cut as 
a bas-relief, and placed as a memorial tablet somewhere about Vassar 
College." 

The poor disappointed ghost heard no more ; even those dearest 
and nearest could not imagine what she would have had done. As 
she drifted back toward the South it seemed to her that she saw 
Dr. Pettyman, and that he was reading the notice of her death in a 
paper. "Dead!" the Doctor thought, "how very fortunate ! now she 
wall never know that I refused to act as her physician." There 
was one friend left who she knew was true and who comprehended 
her aims. This was Cleopatra ; but Cleo was poor and could do 
nothing for Yulee. The angel was right; the same opportunity was 
rarely given to but one person. Yulee had been her opportunity of 
fruit-bearing, and she had missed it. 

The angel stood before her again, grave and questioning. " Does 
your aid and influence live after you ? " he asked. 

" Not as I would have them," she cried. " Oh, let me go back and 
finish the work which I meant to do ! " 

" That is a boon seldom granted," replied the angel. 

But Madeleine struggled with the spirit, as Jacob wrestled with the 



1^5 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



V? 



mysterious stranger, until even he was moved by lier strong pleading 
whicli was not for herself. " I am Israfil," he said, " sent to release you 
from the suffering which you were enduring. Are you willing to take 
it up once more, — to lie down and battle for your life with the fever.? " 
Madeleine's spirit shuddered, then replied calmly, " I am willing." 
Then a sharp pain shot through her brain, and she was conscious 
that she was lying again on Yulee's bed, and that the strange surgeon 
with the spectacles was looking at her thoughtfully, and speaking in 
a low voice to Cleopatra. 

"Yes; she has been and still is a very sick woman, but it is not 
yellow fever. It is never intermittent, and this, you see, is another of 
her good days. Weak as she is, she is not delirious. I see by the 
clear light in her eyes that she knows us, and I believe she is going 
to recover." 

" Yes," replied* Madeleine, gravely, " I am going to get well." 
She closed her eyes, for she was very weary. Yulee lifted her in 
her arms, and gave her something nourishing to drink ; and then she 
slept, — slept long and dreamlcssly, all through that day and night on 
into the following day, which should have been that of the fever. 

Toward evening she awoke much refreshed. The crisis was 
passed, and she was saved. This was what the surgeon said, and 
Madeleine repeated the word " saved." Yes, saved from her old, 
scornful, careless self. She had wakened from her delirium with all 
her better impulses strengthened, with a new view of the seriousness 
of life and an appreciation of its uncertainty, of the little time at the 
best given us for our work here and the importance of doing that 
work at once and thoroughly. Though sweetly serious, she was not 
saddened by her grave experience. The world looked far more 
beautiful to her than ever before. As she lay in the hammock under 
the cool arches of the corridor during her days of convalescence and 
looked out at the garden, a keen appreciation of its picturesqueness 
swept over her. " America is beautiful, after all," she said to Cleo- 



CROSSING THE BRIDGE. 



U1 



patra. " I have never seen anything more lovely than this in Europe. 
I take back all the dreadful things which I said before we started on 
this journey. St. Augustine and that trip up the Ocklawaha have 
converted me." 




FEEDING THE CHICKENS. 



" But this garden and the southern Florida jungle are all tropical 
in character," Cleopatra objected. " Are you sure that what you ad- 
mire in them is not their very foreign feeling, and not the distinctive 
American character ? " 

" No," replied Madeleine; "it is all beautiful. Could anything be 



138 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



more American than that Southern girl in her sun-bonnet in the next 
yard feeding her chickens, and yet she is just as picturesque to me 
as a European peasant, and her face is far more interesting. Even 
that shambh'ng negro adds the element of the grotesque. I wonder 
that I never noticed it before. Is it possible that 
it is the new joy which I feel in being alive once 
more which tinges everything with loveliness?" 

Madeleine always spoke as if she had really 
died, and had been restored to life. Now that it 
was all over, she wrote a long letter to her mother 
telling her the entire story, and explaining her 
wishes in regard to Yulee. Madeleine felt that 
her time now was not her own. Perhaps she had 
been sent back just to make plain about Yulee's 
education, and might have a relapse and be 
snatched away at any moment. At any rate, she 
determined to leave nothing undone which she 
niight lament in case of such an event. " Do the 
most important duties first," was her motto ever 
after. Many crowded days were hers in after life, 
when she could not possibly accomplish all which 
it seemed to her desirable to be done ; but on the 
morning of such a day she sent a quick, prayerful, 
discriminating glance forward to the end, and told herself which 
were the most important duties. 

" Cleo," she said one day, " I .would like to speak with Captain 
Saunters. Has lie never called.'*" 

' Every day, dear, to inquire or leave something. I asked hini 
yesterday if he did not wish to see you, and he said, ' Very- much, 
but perhaps I ought to wait till she is better ; she will let me know 
when I can come.' I think, Madeleine, that he fancies that his 
presence would not be agreeable to you." 




A SHAMlll.INC; NICGKO. 



CROSSING THE BRIDGE. 



139 



A faint flush tinged Madeleine's cheek. " I have treated him 
very badly," she said ; and when the Captain called that afternoon 
she repeated the words, adding, " I owe you an apology. Captain Saun- 
ters. I have been a scornful, hasty girl. Will you forgive me } " 

" Say only that you forgive me," replied the young man, much 
touched. " I have felt that possibly you did not understand just 
the real state of the case, or you might not have been so hard upon 
me. Still it was bad enough, and I do not know that any explanation 
can make it seem better." 

" I would like to hear the entire story from you, nevertheless," 
Madeleine replied. " I shall not retract my forgiveness, whatever 
it may be." 

And Saunters told it simply and truthfully, without sparing him- 
self. Cleopatra's eyes grew large and indignant, for she too was 
listening. " Do you mean to say that this occurred only between your- 
self and Dr. Pettyman, and that there were no other witnesses } " 

" We were quite alone." 

" And the Doctor led me to believe that it was at the Club 
House, before a room full of amused witnesses, of whom he was 
one. Did you say that he challenged you to the bet } " 

"He certainly was the first to suggest it; and though I thought- 
lessly accepted the challenge at first, I immediately retired from it." 

"In the same interview. r* " 

" Almost in the same breath." 

" Then," said Madeleine, " I do not see that in any true sense 
you really could be said to have made it." 

" I thank you for that decision," replied the Captain, a great 
wave of pleasure sweeping over his features ; " and now I can bear 
to tell you that I am ordered West. I leave next week, and could 
not have done so happily, without the knowledge that you were 
recovering, and that you had come once more to regard me as an 
honorable man." 



140 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



Tlicy had one more interview, when their talk was principally 
of Yulee. Captain Saunters's gift toward her education was formally 
accepted by Madeleine. They spoke little of their own futures. His 
own was very uncertain. And though he knew now that he loved 
Madeleine devotedly, with this love there was mingled a great 
reverence ; it was happiness enough to think that he stood before 
her acciuitted, and further than this he did not dare to venture. 

Madeleine wondered whether her dream of him were true, but 
after his oenerous c'ift to her in behalf of Yulee came to think 
that it was only a dream, and that he was still interested in the 
voung Minorcan. "I will do all I can," she promised herself, "to 
make her a fit companion for him." 

The evening ended delightfully under the arches. Cleopatra 
strummed gayly upon her guitar, and Yulee sang a little Spanish 
song, — 

" Si el amor del estudiante 
Fuera cosa permanente, 
No hubiera nada en el mundo 
Que fuera tan excelente." 

" What does it mean } " Madeleine asked ; and Yulee translated, — 

" If see lofe of ze student man were something of permanency, 
zen nossing in ze world would be more besser." 

" Ah ! " exclaimed the Captain, " that is where the student man 
differs from the soldier man. I wonder how it is with the student 
girl?" 

"He means Yulee, of course," thought Madeleine; "he must 
regard her already as a Vassar student." 

And so the evening grew to night, and good-byes were said 
quite cheerfully, and without any sentimentality, but with a deep, 
true sentiment on the Captain's part, which was destined to be long 
unexpressed and misunderstood. 

" Cleo," exclaimed Madeleine the next day, " how forgetful I am! 
I hn\'e not asked for Dr. Pettvman since I have been ill." 



CROSSING THE BRIDGE. 



141 



" Well, I would n't ask for him," Cleopatra replied snappishly. 

" You never liked him, Cleo ; still, as he is a physician, I wonder 
you did not call him in to treat me." 

" It is one thing to call, and another to answer." 

" And Dr. - Pettyman — " 

" Does n't answer," replied Cleopatra, with a laugh. " I told him 
what we thought was the matter, and he found urgent business 
elsewhere. Captain Saunters was our only friend in need — Oh, 
yes " (thinking of her experience in the cathedral), " and the best 
Friend of AU." 

" You mean Yulee ; I 
do not forget how much 
I owe her and her mother ; 
but, Cleo, what puzzles me 
is this. I cannot under- 
stand how Dr. Pettyman, 
who has proved himself so 
untrustworthy, could liave 
written such a book as ' Sir 
Galahad.' " 

" He never wrote it," 
Cleopatra replied impul- 
sively, looking up from the 
book which she happened 
to hold in her hand. 

" He said he did, Cleo ; and because he has not told the truth 
in one instance, we cannot take it for granted that he is a literary 
forger." 

" I do not know whether it is any baser to pretend to the writing 
of an insignificant little book like that than to desert you as he 
did. I only know that he did not write that book." 

" It is not an insignificant little book, as you must admit, though 




IN THE HAM-MOCK. 



14: 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



that has nothing to do with the crime of wearing another's laurel ; 
and you cannot know that he did not write it, Cleo, unless you also 
know who did." 

"Very well, then, I do know, — / wrote it." 

" Cleopatra Atchison ! " 

" Yes, dear, and it is insignificant. Its only merit is that it re- 
produces your thoughts, — ideas which I have heard you express 
from time to time, — and it is not complimentary to either of us to 
suggest it, but I fancy that is the reason you have cared for the 
book." 

" No, indeed, I never had any ideas that were half so good. On 
the contrary, it has been an inspiration and a help to me. Do you 
know, Cleo, that you are a genius ? " 

" No, Madeleine, I shall never be an author. I wrote all I had 
to say in that ^one book, and cannot conceive of the possibility of 
ever writing another. I shall simply try to live up to my ideals now, 
instead of creating new ones." 

Uncle Jonah came back from his trip, and was shocked to hear 
how ill his niece had been. " And to think you let me go away, 
when you supposed all the time that you had .the yellow fever." 

" But it was not the yellow fever, dear uncle ; so you were spared 
a needless fright. It was a great joke on us all, was it not?" 

"I don't know about that, — I don't know about that," he said, 
taking her thin hand in his. " I guess it was about as bad as it 
could be, Madeleine, without — " And here the old man's voice broke, 
for he loved his niece dearly. '" I '11 stay around here until you are 
ready to travel. There 's going to be a regatta that I want to see. 
What do you say to yachting it back to New York .^ Oh! I forgot 
it was the cruise in the schooner that gave you the fever. Well, 
I'll charter a parlor-car, and will take you home the easiest way 
possible, as soon as the weather is too warm for you to stay longer." 

" The surgeon does not think that I contracted my fever in the 



CROSSING THE BRIDGE. 



H. 



schooner or from the sponge which I carried away from it. He says 
that would have been the way to take yellow fever; but the sailor, 
the only one sick on board who was supposed to have brought it to 
St. Augustine, had something quite different, and it has turned out 
that there were no cases of yellow fever either here or in any of the 
ports from which the schooner had sailed, and my fever came from 
exposure to night air in malarial districts. So, dear uncle, if it is 
possible to return by sea, I think Patrick and I would like that way 
very much." 

Very opportunely a friend was discovered on the point of return- 
ing to New York in a large yacht, with ample accommodations for 
Uncle Jonah and the three girls, — for it was decided that Yulee was 
to Q;o with them. Her education had been so irreijular that it was 
judged best to give her a preparatory course in a private school in 
New York before entering her for her special scientific one at Vassar. 

Mrs. Ponce did not hesitate at the parting. She recognized the 
opportunity which was opening before her daughter, and she accom- 
panied her to the steamer-landing proudly arrayed in her best, with 
a black silk shawl thrown mantilla-like over her head and shoulders, 
and giving her, as Cleopatra remarked, a decided likeness to Queen 
Isabella of Spain. 

Raphael Ponce was there, too, shy and silent, with great tears roll- 
ing down his cheeks, for he felt by some dumb intuition that their 
parting was a final one. As he parted from his daughter he said 
simply, " Yulee go over bridge." 

Madeleine remembered that " The Critter " had told her that he was 
part Indian ; and one day, as they sat beneath the awning in the stern 
watching the long wake left by the boat on the smooth water, she 
asked Yulee if this were true. 

" Fazzer all Indian," Yulee replied. " He Seminole ; live when he 
little boy by Lake Flirt, away beyond ze Caloosahatchie River. His 
fazzer hunter and sfuide for sfentlemans who travel. His muzzer when 



144 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



slic little girl been take by Catholic priest to a school, learn speak 
Inglees, learn read. But sec homesick, and see run away; journey 
long, long ways on foots and go home. Zen when see grow bigger, 
see marry my granfazzer ; he talk Inglees too. By-and-by my fazzer 

be born. When he 
little boy his muz- 
zer tell him about 
white peoples ; he 
all time ask her to 
tell about zem. He 
hear his fazzer and 
muzzer talk I nil- 



lees, he crazy to 
learn it too. His 
fazzer take him 
with him in canoe 
down to ze settle- 
ments ; he fery cu- 
rious to stay zere. 
He not like uzzer 
Indian boy, he 
make his muzzer 
teach him read. 
Zen by-and-by he 
say, ' I go learn 
more white man's 
road. I not live in 
swamp like snake; I live in house/ Zen his muzzer, see make little 
bundle his clothes, bring him one day clear to settlement, ofer hill just 
where little bridge lead road to town. Zen see say, ' Zis side bridge 
Indian ; uzzer side white peoples.' He pull her hand and say, ' Come 
wiz me;" but see say, ' Me no like zat side bridge,' and see kiss him 




^$0 






Till'. 1!K1I)(;k 






nj 



C/iOSS/A'G THE BRIDGE. 



145 



and cry, and he come ofer. He come St Augustine, and work earn his 
Hfing. Sometimes he go back see his fazzer and muzzer. He Hke much 
once each year make camp in woods, but he have seen my muzzer 
when he first come to St. Augustine; zat keep him from be homesick 
for Indian Hfe, and by-and-by my muzzer see marry him, and zey fery 
happy. But he get restless, — go off wander in wood. See much scare, 
for people tell her some time he go off so never come back no more. 
So next time he go in wood see go too. So we go efery year." 

" This is all very interesting," said Madeleine. " Will you tell me 
what your father meant w^hen he referred to the bridge as he bade 
you farewell t Was it the little bridge which you tell me he crossed 
when he determined to leave the old wild life .'' " 

Yulee bowed her head. " When you come see me, be my friend, 
teach me, fazzer, he say, ' Yes, yes, all same you tired home life, want 
know more. Well, I no hinder.' I say, ' No, fazzer, I not tired, I not 
go way.' He say, ' Zat all right, by-and-by come bridge ; you go over, 
I stay uzzer side.' He say, ' Zat all same right, only you must not 
forget poor old fazzer and muzzer.' So when I go away in boat he 
say, ' Now we come to ze bridge.' " 

This then was the man whom Madeleine had thou2:ht stolid and 
unfeeling. He had shown himself appreciative of the opportunity 
offered his daughter, and although keenly sensitive, capable of sublime 
self-sacrifice; and he was an Indian. More than this, Yulee, to whom 
under God she owed her life, was of Indian blood. Surely there was 
something in the race capable of improvement. No one need tell her 
after this that it was useless to offer the Indian civilization; and while 
she determined to discharge as far as possible the debt which she 
owed Yulee personally, there came over her mind a dawning con- 
sciousness of the debt which we as a nation owe her people. She 
thought of her mother's active interest in foreign missions, while 
she had never heard her, or any of the philanthropic people whom 
she knew, speak of doing anything for these heathen at home, whom 



146 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




VW.K OF IIROOKLV.N IlKIDGli. 



we have driven farther and farther to the west, perfectly wilHng that 
they should live and die in barbarity so long as we possess their lands. 



CROSSIAG THE BRIDGE. I 17 

Dreaming thus, she was startled from her reverie by the exclama- 
tion of Cleopatra, " Is it not the noblest bridge in the world ? " They 
were in New York harbor, and Cleopatra did not refer to the o-ano-. 
way held out by education to ignorance, but to the grand piers of 
the Brooklyn Bridge, which now loomed up before them. 



CHAPTER XI. 



WILD COLORADO. 



^'W/'^'^^^ ^^'\i.^'^'^^ ^^^^ arrival in New York, Cleopatra returned 
^^^^fe^St%^ to Vassar for the remainder of the school year, but 
. \\\, }''&3lM^3 found it impossible to graduate the following June. 
^'^ '^^ Perhaps she did not try very desperately, for she 







wished to remain in the same class with her friend 
When summer came her father wrote that he 
had obtained leave of absence from his New Mexi- 
can post for two months, and would meet her in 
Denver and take her on a grand Western tour ; and 
he sincerely hoped that she would be able to induce 
Mrs. and Miss Morse to accompany her. 

Madeleine's parents had been discussing plans for the summer. 
Mrs. Morse had been strongly in favor of Switzerland, for the fam- 
ily physician advised mountain air, as Madeleine had not entirely 
regained her strength; but her father disliked to have the ocean 
between them, and Madeleine herself did not care to q-q abroad. This 
invitation was accordingly greeted with enthusiasm. Mrs. Morse had 
become deeply attached to Yulee, and declared that she could not 
think of making this tour without her. Madeleine might be taken ill 
again, and no other nurse would possibly do. Yulee consented to 
accompany them in the capacity of maid ; but this was only agreed to 
in order to make her mind easy on the score of expense, and she was 
treated in every way during the trip as an equal and a friend. 



WILD COLORADO. 



149 



Early in July the four ladies set out by the Atchison, Topeka, and 
Santa Fe Railroad one of the pleasantest of western routes, and stop- 
ping only at St. Louis they found themselves in Colorado a little in 
advance of Major Atchison. It was therefore decided to wait for him 




GATEWAY TO THE GARDEN OF THE GODS. 



at Manitou — a delightful mountain-resort not far from Denver, and 
nestled just at the foot of Pike's Peak. 

All the last day of their journey, as they rode westward, they 
strained their eyes for a glimpse of the Rockies. A bank of 
cloud lay provokingly low on the western horizon, piling up its 
cumulus masses in semblance of peaks. They knew that the moun- 



150 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

tains must be there, and again and again fancied that they saw them. 
Gradually the white changed to blue ; and little by little the ranges 
outlined themselves, the summits alone still wrapped in mystery. 

One bold mountain stood out in advance of the others so grandly 
and majestically that with one accord they all exclaimed, " That must 
be Pike's Peak ! " If only the scarf of mist which turbaned its head 
would unroll and reveal the monarch's snowy crown ! 

" The Peak is like the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan," Cleopatra 
said ; " it shrouds its head in mystery." 

The comparison was more apt than she knew; for the veiled 
prophet was a hoary impostor, — not Pike's Peak, after all, but Cheyenne 
Mountain, which might indeed have won the enthusiasm of the girls 
for its own merits but for the overweening reputation of Captain 
Zebulon Pike's famous monument. Pike's Peak, when they did see 
it, dominated the*landscape and dwarfed all rivals, its majestic summit 
towering above timber-line among snows and clouds to the height of 
14,237 feet. How their desert-tired eyes revelled in the long sweep- 
ing lines, ranges rising above ranges and curling like the onward 
sweep of breakers ready to engulf the pretty town of Colorado Springs, 
where they now left the railroad ! 

Old travellers though they were, and Mrs. Morse fastidious to 
fault-finding, they all found " The Antlers " one of the most satisfac- 
tory hotels which they had ever visited. 

" For once we have found a hotel with an appropriate name," said 
Mrs. Morse, as she enjoyed her antelope steak ; and Madeleine 
added, — 

" ' What shall he have who kills the deer ? 

He shall have the head and the horns to wear.' " 

After dinner they took a carriage and drove across the tawny 
mesa, or table-land, through the far-famed Garden of the Gods to 
Manitou. Madeleine found a resemblance in the drive to the Roman 
Campagna; the grotesquely shaped rocks reminded her of the remains 



WILD COLORADO. 



151 



of aqueducts and of other ruins. " The Gateway," as it is called, 
seemed like a castle of the mediaeval period. As they threaded the 
park of strange natural monuments, their fancy ran riot among the 
fantastic forms which met their eye. 

They drove first through Glen Eyrie, General Palmer's beautiful 
estate, named for the eagle's nests built long since upon jutting ledges 




COLUMNS OF RED SANDSTONE. 



of the cliff. Here columns of red sandstone had been worn into rude 
statuesque forms: an enormous whity-green griffin, a lion after the 
Assyrian type, and Lot's wife changed to sandstone instead of to salt, 
were some of the weird shapes. Nearer Manitou they passed a 
woman in white, a still better Lot's wife, and two gigantic giraffes or 
camels. Then followed such a zoological exhibition that Cleopatra 
suggested that some prehistoric. Barnum had here been petrified. 
Then followed more of Nature's architecture, — the " Temple of Isis," 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




"she has lived in leauvil,le ever 
since it was projected." 



with its strange towers and archways, and the " Cathedral Spires," 
which Madeleine thought as beautiful in its way as fair Melrose. 

Shortly after they made their entry into 
Manitou, which they found to be a village of 
cottao^es and summer hotels, clinmncr like 
Swiss chalets to the slopes of a picturesque 
caiion. They drove past the showy bath- 
house, various hotels, and private residences, 
— among the latter Grace Greenwoods cot- 
tage, — to their resting-place at the Iron 
Springs Hotel. 

Mrs. Morse was astonished at the elesfance 
and convenience of her surroundings. " I 
thought we were going to camp in the wilderness among savages, and 
just look at those people on the hotel piazza! They are just as civil- 
ized as anybody else. I had a chat with that lady with her dress cut 
in the heart-shaped style, and really I would not have known that she 
had not lived in New York all her life, and 
she says she has lived in Leadville ever since 
it was projected. Only fancy ! Leadville ! 
And yet she has managed to get up a very 
stylish coiffure. I thought every one wore 
their hair a la Cheyenne at Leadville." 

"Dear mother, do speak a little lower!" - 
whispered Madeleine. " I am afraid that 
young lady in the scarlet jacket has taken 
umbrage at what you have said." 

" Why should she t She is a New-Yorker 
half an eye that that 's a Redfern jacket." 

Mrs. Morse had spoken too loudly. A young man in foppish 
eye-glasses turned and remarked, " My sister's coat was made by a 
London tailor, but she is a Denver girl." 




A COLORADO .SAVAGE. 



any one can tell with 



WILD COLORADO. 



15: 




"THAT'S A REDFERN 
JACKET." 



Mrs. Morse subsided into the house, too much mortified to apolo- 
gize ; but Cleopatra came to the rescue with 
a merry laugh. " Forgive our Eastern igno- 
rance ! " she exclaimed, extending her hand. 
" Believe me that we are filled with admira- 
tion as well as astonishment by all we see in 
this wonderful country." 

Xo one could resist Cleopatra's engaging 
manners, and the young man asked permission 
to present his sister, Miss Hurlburt, of Idaho 
Springs. Mr. Hurlburt explained that he was 
in the mining business at Central City, just 
across the Mountain from Idaho Springs; and 
Cleopatra asked a number of intelligent ques- 
tions, which showed that she was already some- 
what acquainted with the subject. 

" You are surely not an Eastern girl," ?^Iiss Hurlburt exclaimed, 
with srenuine admiration ; " at least not any farther east than Wichita." 

" I am a genuine Western girl," Cleopatra replied ; " I belong to 
the army, I was born at Fort Sill, and have rattled around to nearly 
every frontier post in the West. An ambulance is my natural home." 

"How jolly!" exclaimed Miss Hurlburt; "but I am afraid of your 
friends, — they are New-Yorkers." 

" They imagined you were from New York too, and there is only 
one compliment higher than that which a New-Yorker can pay." 

" And what is that, pra}^ ? " 

•' To think you are English." 

Miss Hurlburt's nose took a higher elevation. '" There are plenty 
of young English ranchmen out here, but we don't think anything 
of them. They are regular cowboys in their dress and manners, really 
as bad as Buffalo Bill. The idea of being pleased at having any one 
think you English ! " and Miss Hurlburt laughed merrily. 



154 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 








THt: LATEST ENGLISH STVLE. 



On the next day Madeleine, Cleopeitra, Yulee, and the Hurlburts 
made the ascent of Pike's Peak on horseback, 
which they found to be a much longer ride than 
they anticipated. The hoary giant seemed 
to keep its place at the same relative distance, 
just 'at the head of the gorge, with provoking- 
persistence. They rode for hours, and it looked 
very little nearer. " You have heard the story," 
said Mr. Hurlburt, "of two travellers in Col- 
orado who had been frequently deceived in the 
matter of distance by our wonderful atmos- 
phere. Having reached a very small brook, 
one of them took off his coat. ' What are 
you going to do ? ' asked the other. ' It. looks 
as if I could step across,' replied the first, ' but 
I am not going to be fooled again ; it may be 
a couple of miles for all I know, and I am going to be ready to 
swim." 

Yulee had brought her botanists' can, and exclaimed from time to 
time at the mountain flowers, — the new species of columbine, and the 
Alpine flora which showed themselves as they mounted above timber- 
line, the deep blue gentians, and the American Edehveiss. Mr. 
Hurlburt professed himself more interested in geology, and spoke of 
a fine collection which he wished to show her. 

Then some one spoke of the Ute Pass, — the trail by which the 
Indians of this tribe were accustomed to file down the mountains to 
visit the mineral springs at Manitou, and of which they were very 
fond. 

" It seems a pity," said Madeleine, " that they should be driven 
so far away from their favorite haunts." 

"Colorado people do not see the pity," Mr. Hurlburt replied, with 
a laugh which was not altogether pleasant. " We would like nothing 



WILD COLORADO. 



157 



better than to have every Indian cleared from the State, and we '11 
manage it too." 

" What will become of them then ? " 

" I don't know. I am sure I don't care if they are all driven into 
the Pacific. We have had our share of them. It is very easy for 
Eastern people to be sentimental about the Indians. I would like to 
have the whole parcel of them shipped East, and dumped by instal- 
ments in the different cities." 

Yulee made a quick telegraphic motion to Madeleine not to betray 
her, and that young lady replied : " I don't know but that would be 
a very good plan. They could not go on with their old savage life 
there, and the children would gradually become educated by the very 
force of their surroundincrs, I don't see but we have as much room 
for them amongst us as for the dynamiters, the lowest class of the 
negroes, the ignorant peasants of Europe, and the Chinese." 

" The Chinese are not so bad," replied Mr. Hurlburt. " I am in 
favor of their being employed in the mines, and have stood by them 
through more than one riot. There is only one Indian for whom 
Colorado people have a thorough respect, and that was the Ute chief 
Ouray. He was without doubt the friend of the white man ; he 
befriended and protected starving miners, even when they were pros- 
pecting on his land, and while he lived he did a great deal toward 
keeping his turbulent tribe in order. He liad a neat house and an 
orchard of cherry and other fruit trees. After his death, when the 
tribe was moved, his widow Chipeta petitioned to remain in her home. 
But we did not want any Indians in that part of the State, and we 
sent her packing." 

" Was n't zat what you call razzer hard .^ " asked Yulee. 

" Well, yes ; but there does n't seem to be any way of meeting the 
Indian except his own, — of cruelty and revenge." 

Madeleine was silent. This man, who seemed just and clear- 
headed on everv other subject, lost all idea of justice when he dis- 



I 58 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

cussed the Indian problem ; and she found this frequently the case in 
the W^est. She was obliged to admit that they had many arguments 
upon their side. Surely the Government, in making no efforts to civ- 
ilize and educate the Indians, was doing a wrong to its white settlers 
by forcing them to live in dangerous proximity to savages. Mr. 
Hurlburt was right: there was no longer any room in America for 
savages; they must be either killed or civilized, — could Christian 
Americans hesitate as to which method should be employed t 

Major Atchison arrived after a few days ; but the acquaintance 
with the Hurlburts had now progressed so far that an invitation to 
visit the mines at Central City and to spend a few days at their home 
at Idaho Springs was extended and accepted. Denver w^as visited 
en route, — a great, enterprising city, with little to distinguish it from 
an Eastern city of the same size. 

Central City -was one of the first mining-regions opened, and was 
originally known as Pike's Peak. Letters directed simply to " Pike's 
Peak near Fort Laramie " found their owners here. 

Up Clear Creek Caiion the train from Denver threaded its way past 
exhausted gulches where Chinamen still patiently wash for gold, up to 
the richer regions of the Black Hawk mines. The canon w^as here so 
narrow that the houses seemed to cling desperately to the sides of the 
cliffs, and the roof of one was frequently the dooryard of another. 
Madeleine noticed that one family who had no yard of any description, 
a shelf in the cliff having been cut for their house, kept their cow 
upon the roof. 

The mine with which Mr. Hurlburt was connected was called " the 
Bobtail." It was so named from the fact that in early times the ore 
was hauled out on a raw-hide by an old bob-tailed ox. Now a com- 
pany of wealthy capitalists work the mine by means of complicated 
machinery. Five stories of galleries have been excavated ; the lowest, 
eleven hundred feet below the surface, runs for hundreds of feet into 
the heart of the mountain. 



WILD COLORADO. 



159 



The girls threaded one of these damp, dark passages for a mile 
or so, — a tunnel which had cost one hundred dollars per foot to cut, 
and which reminded Madeleine of the Catacombs, and Major Atchi- 
son of the galleries within the Rock of Gibraltar. Much trouble was 
experienced by the miners from meeting with springs of water while 
tracing a vein of ore, and a great part of the mine was flooded. 

" Think of being lost in one of these underground chambers ! " 
said Cleopatra with a shudder. 

" It happened to me once," replied Mr. Hurlburt. " A part of the 
mine behind me caved in, and I was shut in with two of the men. 
We knew there was another way to the daylight, but our lanterns 
gave out and we w^andered about for forty-eight hours trying to find 
the exit. We were rescued at last by Ah Lee, a 
Chinaman, whose life, I suppose, I saved when 
some of our miners had him at their mercy. He 
made up an exploring party of one, found us, and 
dragged us out when w'e had given up hope and 
lain down to die. So, you see, I believe in China- 
men." 

" Perhaps, if some one of Indian blood had 
saved your life, you would believe in Indians," said 
Madeleine. 

" Perhaps ; only I never had that experience," 
Mr. Hurlburt replied incredulously. 

Out in the open air once more, they passed to 
the stamping-mill, and watched the crushing and 
washing of the ore by swift and powerful machin- 
ery. An air-drill was being tested near by, and the 
engineer in charge of the air-compresser wore a a" lee. 

frightened expression. " When the pressure gets a little greater," he 
remarked, " I am going to light out ; it '11 take the side out of the house 
just as easy." 




l6o THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

They stepped into the Bank, and while there a small " placer " 
miner brought in two great nuggets which the cashier reported worth 
eight hundred dollars, fifteen dollars to the ounce. In the Cyclops 
Assay Office a fine cabinet of specimens was shown them, and mar- 
vellous stories were told, until Cleopatra declared that the very water 
which she drank seemed gritty with gold. 

" I understand," said Yulee, " why ze dentistry is not a good busi- 
ness here. You sail only to drink of ze water to fill of gold ze 
cavity of ze toof." 

]\Ir. Hurlburt was greatly amused. The wit of this young Italian 
girl, as he considered her, greatly fascinated him. 

The next dav a dashin"' ride across the mountain took them to 
Idaho Springs. 

What a drive it was ! Up through the gathering mists, vainly 
hoping that they would roll away and disclose the view from the 
summit, — one of the grandest in all Colorado. They rested the horses 
occasionally to gather wild-flowers, — columbine, weigelia, harebells, 
and larkspur, — and to collect glittering specimens of rose quartz. 
Near the summit they passed a lonely cabin once occupied by a high- 
wayman named Grab-em-all Jim. 

And now the driver put on the brakes, and they ground and slid 
down the precipitous road, gullied by the rains into many a " thank- 
you-Ma'am," too narrow for a team to pass, with a ravine on the right 
hand and a rocky wall upon the left. 

The girls clutched frantically to their scats; but Mr. Hurlburt, used 
to rough riding, grumbled : " Don't put on the brakes, driver ; let the 
horses run ! I 've heard Bill Updyke took General Grant and Mrs. Sar- 
toris down the mountain in ten minutes. Can't you beat that record.'* " 

The driver mutttcred to himself that a fast fool broke his neck here 
the other day trying to do it ; but Mr. Hurlburt replied : " He was 
drunk. No danger at all if a man knows how to drive ! Perhaps you 
had better let me take the reins." 




A DANGEROUS RIDE. 



WILD COLORADO. jf,-. 

The driver loosens the brakes with a dogged, " I kin drive as fast 
as the next one if you will take the risk." 

Thenceforth the girls close their eyes and wish themselves in the 
following vehicle with Mrs. Morse, Yulee, and the Major; while Cleo- 
patra murmurs, " Oh ! would it not have been better if that air-drill 
had exploded while we were looking at it yesterday ? " 

Presently the carriages swept triumphantly into the pretty villao-e 
of Idaho Springs. Here Miss Hurlburt greeted them on the piazza 
of a Queen Anne cottage; and after a supper of delicious brook-trout 
they were taken to see the soda springs, the great swimming-bath, and 
other sisrhts of the town. 

A week u'as spent very pleasantly with their new friends, and then 
the entire party turned their faces once more westward ; for both Miss 
Hurlburt and her brother had decided that they would join them for 
a month's camping in the National Park. 



CHAPTER XIL 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 




qpOTWITHSTANDING their delightful experiences, 
it was plainly to be seen that something was the 
matter with the Major. He had been depressed 
ever since the arrival of an of^cial letter marked 
" War Department." Cleopatra, who was used to her 
father's moods, knew that he was blue, and used her 
merriest wiles to beguile him. It was of no avail ; 
the Q:ood man became crloomier and orloomier. 

"You have changed so, Pat," he said to her one 

day. "You used to be the maddest little romjj in 

the West. Little Hurlburt here could n't hold a 

candle to you for pranks and mischief, but Vassar has toned you 

down so that I scarcely know you." 

" Don't you like me so, father? " Cleopatra asked, much troubled. 
"Like you! You have vastly improved; but will you like the 
West now .'' You are a cultivated young lady, fitted for the best 
there is in the East. I 'm afraid our military posts will seem a lit- 
tle — Well, I fancy you'll call us crude now." 

Cleopatra laughed, and hugged her father. " You know I adore 
the West." she said. " Nothing could induce me to live anywhere 
else. I love dear romantic old Santa Fe, with its fascinating Spanish 
history. I am going to study it up wlien we get there, and I intend 




CANON OF THE ARKANSAS. 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 



167 



to coax the Bishop to let me read all the records of the Franciscan 
friars who discovered the country, and perhaps I shall find some of 
the state papers of the old Spanish Governors, which were sold for 
waste-paper." 

The Major groaned. " Do not set your heart too much on 
Santa Fe: An army officer's life is as uncertain as that of a Metho- 
dist minister's ; you know they say their chickens always lie down 
and turn up their feet to be tied whenever a covered wagon 
passes by." 

Cleopatra whistled. " Oh, that 's it ! " she said ; " we are going 
to be transferred. Well, we have enjoyed the luxury of a peaceable 
post long enough, I suppose. I think I should like a little cam- 
paigning. It would be ever so exciting and nice to chase the 
Apaches into Mexico. I always liked the Indians, and I want to 
see more of them ; the wilder the better. Do tell me that we are 
going among the hostiles." 

" There are no hostiles now," said the ]\Iajor. " No ; there is no 
probability of my being ordered into active service, and if I were 
I should not take you." And after this the Major vouchsafed 
nothing further. Cleopatra knew that it would be of no use to 
question him, but that in his own time all would be explained. 

The party now dashed through some of the most magnificent 
scenery in the world ; for the adventurous Denver and Rio Grande 
Railroad climbs and tunnels, zigzags, plunges, coasts, or creeps 
wherever the most sublime scenery of Colorado is to be found. No 
difficulties have been too great, no natural barriers insurmountable. 
It would seem that the enterprising managers of this road had sent 
it in search of every stupendous canon and every mountain peak of 
unusual grandeur. 

Their first genuine surprise was in the canon of the Arkansas. 
Here they were filled with what Ruskin calls the deep and pure 
emotion of astonishment. The Arkansas River, foaming over its 



1 68 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

rocky bed, chafes its way at the bottom of this awful ravine, in 
some places shut in closely by two perpendicular walls of basaltic 
rock so high that from the bottom tlie sky seemed a ribbon of blue. 
Along this prisoned river-bed the railroad is laid, — beside it, where 
there is room for the two to divide the narrow gallery ; over it, by 
means of bridges and flying buttresses, where the river fills the floor 
of the gorge. It was a magnificent achievement in engineering, and 
was so appreciated by them all. But there was another part of the 
route which struck them as more truly stupendous and sublime. 
This was the Black Canon, a longer ravine, the sides rising to 
grander heights, — at one point more than three thousand feet in 
a nearly perpendicular wall. 

They made the trip by moonlight, on an " observation car " without 
roof. The girl^ were closely wrapped in shawls and blankets ; for 
though it was an August night, the air was very cold. The roaring 
of the train was reverberated from the rock}' walls, giving the im- 
pression that another must be approaching at the same dizzy speed 
and that a collision was inevitable. Every now and then the chasm 
wound or turned abruptly, so that it seemed as if the engine were 
about to plunge straight against a solid wall of rock. By their side 
the Gunnison River dashed jetty black, but flecked with white foam. 
Now a cascade sprang from a cliff and was blown into a veil of mist 
before reaching the bottom, and now they rounded the Currecanti 
Needle, — a beautiful cone-shaped pinnacle where it is said the Utes 
once lighted signal-fires. Down the still narrower ravine of the 
Cimarron, and then with a shriek from the whistle they dashed 
out of this valley of enchantment. 

Yulee was profoundly impressed ; these were the first mountains 
which she had seen. Even Madeleine, who was familiar with the 
Alps, was surprised. " I did not know that we had anything like 
this in America," she exclaimed, and was quite out of patience with 
a geologist who had been introduced to them, who persisted in tell- 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 



169 



ing her that this was the finest region in the world for auriferous 
pyrites (gold ore), galena (silver ore), tourmaline, microline, wavel- 
lite, and magnetite. He was attracted by the beauty of an opal 
which Mrs. Morse wore, but surprised that lady by calling it a fine 
specimen of hydrated silica. 

Yulee noticed the look of annoyance on Madeleine's face. " And 
yet," she explained to Mr. Hurlburt, " see sail be fery fond of 
geology ; but it ees not ze time to talk of 
zat when ze soul is touch by ze grand. 
It ees as if one should tell me what ze 
good God sail look like." 

Mr. Hurlburt, who was intensely prac- 
tical, tried to aro-ue that science never de- 
tracted from sublimity. " When Ruskin 
tells me," he said, " that ' mountains are to 
the body of the earth what violent mus- 
cular action is to the body of man,' and 
that ' the muscles and tendons of its anat- 
omy are in the mountains brought out with fierce and convulsive 
energy, full of expression, passion, and strength,' then I maintain that 
he asserts a purely scientific fact, but in doing so he makes the 
mountains seem more poetic to me than before." 

Yulee shrugged her shoulders in the pretty way which she in- 
herited from her mother. " I sink zat Mr. Rus — Rus (how you 
call him ?) more of poet as geologist," she said. 

Mr Hurlburt laughed. He was fast becoming very much in- 
terested in Yulee. Madeleine saw it and was displeased. She 
thought that Yulee ought to be conscious of his admiration, and that 
she was not acting fairly to Captain Saunters. 

Miss Hurlburt saw her brother's admiration also, and, like the 
good sister she was, aided and abetted him at every turn by en- 
gaging the others in sprightly conversation and leading them away 




MISS HURLBURT. 



170 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



to see fictitious points of interest whenever the party left the cars. 
She looked like an iiigenue, this fair-haired young girl, but she was 





THE COWBOY. 



THE MINISTER. 



as deep a sch 




THE SENATOR. 



emer as a Wall Street broker, and as clever a manipu- 
lator of the matrimonial market for others as for her- 
self. Personally she had refused three army officers, a 
half dozen young ranchmen and miners, two tourists 
from the East who had each known her just forty- 
eight hours, all of the unmarried ministers of her 
acquaintance, and one Senator. She had given the 
Senator consideration for the space of three quarters 
of an hour, for she was not without ambition ; but like 
most Western girls she was true and good at heart, and 
when the Senator returned to ascertain the result of 
her deliberation, he stood with arms akimbo, a dis- 
gusted and much astonished man. 

A little before the train reached Marshall Pass, on 
the crest of the continent, — the great " divide " which 
decides whether a rain-drop shall finally flow into the 
Atlantic or the Pacific, — there was a halt made at 
some long snow-sheds which protect the track from 
the winter avalanches, and the passengers all alighted. 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 171 

Miss Hurlburt suggested that they should all scramble up the 
side of the mountain a little way to some patches of snow which 
gleamed white in the sunshine, though aspens were shivering beside 




" LONG SNOW-SHEDS WHICH PROTECT THE TRACK." 

them, and there indulge in an August snowball frolic. Cleopatra 
followed enthusiastically ; her father and Madeleine more slowly. 
Mrs. Morse looked on with amused interest, but Mr. Hurlburt drew 



172 



THREE ]'ASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



Yulee's attention to some lupines growing almost out of another snow- 
bank a little way clown the gorge. What womanly intuition was 
it which told Miss Hurlburt that her brother and Yulee would be 
seized with a botanical craze to examine these flowers? Nothing 
could have been more unconscious than the extremely general way 
in which she invited all in the other direction, and yet the little 
minx knew^ just how many would accept her invitation. 

Marshall Pass is above timber-line, among clouds and snow ; but 
after leaving the Pass the track begins to descend the Pacific by 
a series of long inclined planes, — "coasts," Cleopatra called them, — 
of the dizzy grade of two hundred and twenty feet to the mile. 

Soon after they were fiying over the Great American Desert, 
tawny browni in color, with crumbling sand-hills, or "buttes," shutting 
in the view. I^Iadeleine noticed that Yulee was graver than usual, 
that she no longer sparkled in repartee with Mr. Hurlburt, but 
occupied herself in quietly reading, or more often in looking dreamily 
from the window, book in hand, but her gaze apparently absorbed 
by the troops of wild sun-flowers which seemed to keep pace with 
the flying train. They struck against the car windows like saucy 
forward creatures demanding attention. 

Madeleine was glad to see her more quiet and thoughtful. " She 
is coming to her senses," she thought, "and remembers what she 
owes the Captain." Madeleine forgot for the moment that Yulee 
was quite unconscious that she owed Captain Saunters anything ; 
and as the romance which Madeleine had woven betw^een them 
existed only in that young lady's imagination, the gallant Captain 
had at this time no part in her thoughts. 

Their next stop after this was at Salt Lake City. Here all 
the party were rendered indignant ])y what they saw. 

" It is almost enough to make me ashamed of my uniform," 
said the Major, " to think that our Government tolerates such infamy 
and treason ; for open disobedience to its laws is nothing less." 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 



173 



They attended service in tlie " Tabernacle," — a building shaped 
like an inverted boat, — and the girls could scarcely contain their 
wrath and quietly sit through the sermon. 

" I did not realize that such things existed in our own land," 
said Madeleine. " I knew that away in Turkey there are harems, 
and that several wives are permitted by the Mohammedan religion 





WTSTT 




THE MORMON TABERNACLE. 



to one man ; but I confess I never understood until now that such 
indignity to women was permitted in our own Christian country. 
Why do not the people of the United States rise up cii masse, and 
say that such things shall not be ? " 

" The people of the United States know very little, and care 
less about it," said Mr. Hurlburt ; "that is the boast of the Mor- 
mons. They have taken possession of this garden of the Lord, 



174 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

isolated from civilization by the desert. They have until the recent 
building of the railroad conducted themselves as they pleased, beyond 
the reach, and almost beyond the knowledge, of the rest of the world." 

"But Government must know how they are spreading, — that 
they have colonies in five States and TerritoHes. Their converts are 
pouring into New^ York, three hundred on a single steamship. Why 
does not Government put a stop to such emigration ? " 

" In the first place Government is an extremely impersonal indi- 
vidual, and the Mormon body is very rich. I am afraid Government's 
conscience is easily put to sleep with Mormon soothing-syrup," said 
Mr. Hurlburt. " It is, however, an alarming thing to consider that 
in my own State of Colorado, where the Republican and the Demo- 
cratic vote are nearly balanced, the Mormon population is large 
enough to give the majority to either party." 

" I don't care a penny for the political aspect of the question," 
said Cleopatra, excitedly. " What I cannot understand is how any 
woman can submit to such personal and social degradation. How 
I wish I could talk to the c^irls here ! I would like nothino: better 
than to set up a school in this place." 

" You would be boycotted for your pains," said Mr. Hurlburt. 
" There is a large Gentile population here now, but they do not 
mingle with the Mormons. By the way, speaking of the term by 
which the Mormons politely designate the rest of the world, it is a 
curious fact that most of the ' Gentiles ' here are Jewsr 

" I am glad to see them here ; for I am sure, strange as it may 
sound, that their example will have a Christianizing effect. I am 
glad, too, to see the Roman Catholic Cross over so many buildings, 
and especially to see that they have a seminary for girls here. The 
ascetic example of the nuns is a beautiful contrast to the grossness 
about them. I saw a sweet, little, flaxen-haired Swedish girl yes- 
terday morning, as we rode out to the lake. She was sitting under 
one of the few large trees on the way, feeding some doves. She 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 



175 



looked so innocent and happy that I could not bear to think of her 
growing up in this dreadful place." 

" I think," said Madeleine, " that when these girls see that other 
women insist on having 
one undivided husband to 
themselves alone, they will 
want the same or none. 
Do the men never genuine- 
ly fall in love here, I won- 
der ! One might do a real 
missionary work here by 
distributing the better class 
of novels. A pure, sweet 
love-story would, it seems 
to me, rouse nobler ideals." 
^ " But did you notice the 
young men at the Taber- 
nacle } " asked Cleopatra. 
" I did not notice one that 
would figure as the hero of 
a romance. I have only 
seen one Latter-Day Saint reading an Eastern newspaper since we 
came, and he seemed to be having a hard time to puzzle it out. And 
one sees no nice-looking boys, such as we might imagine were attend- 
ing high school or preparing for college, or such manly fellows as 
we saw in the Kansas farming districts. But if the girls could be 
educated, they would see for themselves how much better the loneliest 
life would be than such companionship." 

The next day the party made an excursion by rail to the Great 
Salt Lake, — a lovely inland sea with mountains in the distance, 
reminding Madeleine strongly of Lake Geneva. The gentlemen 
bathed in the water, and found it buoyant and easy to swim in. 




LITTLE SWEDISH GIRL. 



1/6 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 




A LATTER-DAY SAINT. 



Groceries," and the like. 



Cleopatra amused herself by photographing the people who fre- 
quented the pavilion. She had already secured views of some of 

the homes of the settlers as well as of 
the grand scenery through which they 
had passed. 

On their return they took carriages 
and drove about the city. They were 
shown the Lion House, the former resi- 
dence of Brigham Young, the Bee-Hive 
or Harem, the Endowment House, and 
the great unfinished Temple. They were 
amused by such signs as " Zion Co-oper- 
ative Store," and " Holiness to the Lord 
From the city they drove to the neglected 
Mormon Cemetery. A more desolate abode of the dead can scarcely 
be imagined. Madeleine called it " lonely," but Yulee said this was 
hardly the proper term. " I cannot imagine to myself," she said, 
" zat so many womens should be lonely togezzer." They read on one 
stone the names of the wives of George A. Smith, — " Bathsheba \V., 
Lucy ]\L, Zilpah S., Hannah M., Nancy G„ Sarah A., Susan E." 

Some friends of the Major's invited the party to dinner at 
Camp Douglass, the pretty military post which overlooks Salt 
Lake City. Here they drew a long breath, for it seemed to them 
that they breathed a different atmosphere. The oflficers' houses 
were of neat brown-stone, and the parade-ground was set with Balm- 
of-Gilead trees. The interiors of the homes were furnished with 
all the tasteful ness and elesjance which ofHcers' wives know so well 
how to evolve from furnishings which can be shut up in small com- 
pass at a moment's notice. Photographs of dear ones far away dec- 
orated the wall side by side with gun-racks and Indian curiosities, 
German favors, engravings from the " London Graphic," Japanese 
decorations, souvenirs of West Point or home, and many another 



THE ROCKIES AND SALT LAKE. 



177 



pretty object which had been folded close and had travelled by 
ambulance from one part of the Union to another. 

" I wish you could be stationed here, father," said Cleopatra ; 
" then I should know what my duty in life was. I would make 
the acquaintance of some of these Mormon girls, — that little yellow- 
haired Swede, first of all." 




A PIONEER S HOME. 



The Major gave a sudden start. "How did you find it out.?" 
he asked. 

" Find what out } " Cleopatra replied, much bewildered. 

" I am transferred to Camp Douglass, ordered to report here a 
month from this date. Salt Lake will be our home for the present." 

" Delightful ! " exclaimed Cleopatra. 

" ' Delightful ! ' and here I have been dreading to tell you that it 
was necessary for us to come to such a God-forsaken place. I fan- 
cied you would take it hard, and I did not blame you. Well, 



178 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

girls are the most inexplicable creatures. The longer I lived with 
your mother the less I understood her. Your sister Barbara was 
a puzzle past finding out, and you are an enigma which I give up 
entirely." 

" No, father," Cleopatra replied, radiantly happy; "you shall never 
give me up. I am going to be the most useful, the most delightful 
old maid that ever was, and you. shall bless the day that I was ever 
born." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CAMPING ON THE YELLOWSTONE. 




!?T > Salt Lake City the party provisioned for their 
camping in the National Park, ' supplying their 
Commissary Department wiih an outfit of canned 
goods, — beef, tongue, Boston baked beans, oysters, 
condensed milk, sardines, canned fruits of various 
kinds, — crackers, bacon, coffee, and tea. They then 
proceeded by rail to Ogden, and from thence by the 
Utah Northern Railroad to Beaver Canon, and across 
a range of mountains to the western entrance of the 
Park. This wonder-land of the genii is a tract of land, 
sixty-five miles north and south by fifty-five east and west, 
set apart from settlement by the Government as a pleasure-ground, 
and is situated in the northwestern corner of Wyoming Territory. Not 
far away is the Big Horn River, where Custer and his command met 
their death. Our party knew that they were to see great natural curi- 
osities, and had heard of the marvellous hot springs and falls, but still 
were not prepared for the stupendous canon and the awful ge3'sers. 

Not far from the railroad terminus they secured the services of an 
expert guide who furnished saddle-horses, mules, and spring-wagons, 
with camp equipage. His home and his Indian wife and children 
were objects of great interest to the girls. It seemed to all that Dick 
had met his wife more than half-way, going farther toward sa\-agery 
than she had toward civilization. 



i8o 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



" That is always the way of it," said Mr. Hurlburt. " I have 
known several white men who married Indian wives. They either 
regretted the experiment or relapsed to barbarism themselves. 
Nothing could induce me to make such a fool of myself." 

Madeleine noticed that Yulee was silent, but that her look was 
no longer one of roguish merriment, but rather of pained confusion. 
She grew more and more indignant with the girl. " I wonder," she 




niCK AND HIS FAMILV. 



thought, " whether lier braving the yellow fever for my sake was only 
a low kind of ph3'Sical courage, and whether she lacks, after all, a 
high moral courage, or a nice perception between right and wrong." 

They stopped, the first night of their expedition after leaving 
the railroad, at Marshall's Hotel ; but the second they made their own 
camp, very much like the one in the pine-barrens of Florida. Their 
first objective point was the Madison River, or, as it is called here, the 
Fire Hole River. They visited only the Upper Geyser Basin ; and all 
declared that it was the most wonderful day of their lives. " I had 




CRATER OF "OLD FAITHFUL. 



CAMPING ON THE YELLOWSTONE. 1 83 

always thought," said Madeleine, '' that the geysers would be like the 
fountains at Versailles on a day dcs grajids eaux ! I had no idea 
that they were so immense." 

The Excelsior, whose eruption they did not see, spouts to a height 
of three hundred feet. They were delighted with the paint pools, 
orange, ruby, and rose-color, and especially with the Morning-glory 
Pool, which Mrs. Alice Wellington Rollins describes so exquisitely : 
" It is precisely like a morning-glory flower. Its long and slender 
throat, like the tube of the blossom, reaching from' unknown depths 
below, branches out in ever-widening snowy walls, forming at last a 
perfectly symmetrical and exquisite chalice, which is filled with water 
of the loveliest robin's-egg blue. The rim of the chalice is delicately 
and regularly scalloped, and is edged with a tiny line of coral." 

The greatest sensation of the day occurred near Old Faithful, which 
stands at the head of the valley, and is so named from its regular inter- 
vals of spouting, a little more than an hour apart. It began with a 
sputter, then a quick fusillade of jets, increasing in height to over a 
hundred feet, and then dying away in steam. When they first arrived 
the crater had an innocent extinct look, and Yulee wandered quite near 
to examine the encrustations of silica with which it was bordered. 
It began to boil, and she drew back to only a short distance, watching 
the rapidly growing fountains, not hearing, in the noise of the geyser, 
the call of the guide, and would undoubtedly have been scalded, had 
not Mr. Hurlburt suddenly caught her away. He was very pale, 
and when they stood breathless just out of reach of that thunderous 
descending column of water and spray, an expression of unmistakable 
emotion came into his face — an intense thankfulness born of equal 
dismay — which told of a man's deepest affection. For an instant 
the look was answered in Yulee's mirror-like eyes; then the others 
crowded around with exclamations and warnings. Not a word had 
been said, and yet these two young people knew that each loved the 
other. 



184 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS A T HOME. 




THI-: g?:vsi:k land. 



All day the party wandered through the enchanted valley, visitinc^ 
geyser after geyser. The Giant proved to be a huge horn-shaped 




THE GROTTO. 



CAMPING ON THE YELLOWSTONE. iS^ 

crater five feet across. The guide told them that this ge) ser spouted 
to the height of one hundred and thirty feet. They waited for it 
an hour or so, but the genius within was sullen and refused to 
corne forth. Many of the springs were of a deep blue color, con- 
taining sulphate of copper, and held in beautiful porcelain-lined 
basins. Following down the river, they passed other smaller gey- 
sers with odd names, — the Black Sand, the Bath-Tub, the Punch- 
Bowl, and the Pyramid. Some of these were in eruption, and 
others at rest. But the most beautiful spectacle of the day, all 
agreed, was the Grotto. This was a fanciful formation, resembling 
a ruined palace with arches and carvings of mimic architecture. 
Profiting by Yulee's experience at Old Faithful, all kept at a re- 
spectful distance from the Grotto, though Cleopatra longed to explore 
it. Mr. Hurlburt focussed her camera and waited patiently, and was 
rewarded by a beautiful display ; the jets, as they issued from different 
openings, from her point of view grouped themselves in a superb fan 
sixty feet high. 

After leaving this spot, strolling about in search of brilliantly col- 
ored encrustations, Madeleine found herself for a little while alone 
with Yulee. It was an opportunity not to be lost. " Yulee," she 
asked gently, "do you realize that Mr. Hurlburt is interested in you .^ " 

A deep crimson burned on the girl's cheek, but she answered 
frankly, " I haf sometime think so. It is possible I do deceive 
myself." 

" Would it not be worse to deceive him } Do you think it is 
right to let him go on loving you when you know that your marriage 
is impossible, if for no other reason, from his prejudice toward the 
Indians ? " 

" You have right ; he should know I was Indian." 

" Then why don't you tell him .^ " 

" That should be very hard. I would razzer you to do it." 

" Then shall I tell him all .? " 



1 88 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



She darted a quick appreciative glance. " I would make you many 
sanks." 

There was no opportunity for such confidences that day or even- 
ing, and the next day the party drove over the mountain " divide " 
which separates the streams wliich flow into the Missouri from 
those which seek the Columbia, to the Hot Springs on the south- 




••vl'li:e and maueleini; were both fond of fishing. 



west arm of Yellowstone Lake. The lake is twenty-two miles in 
length, and from ten to fifteen in width. From their camp tliey 
commanded a beautiful view of the lake, which was of an exquisite 
blue shading into tourmaline-green. The springs bubble up inside 
of funnel-shaped craters which extend into the very lake, so that 
at this point the fisher can catch his trout, and with a whisk of his 
rod drop them into the boiling spring and cook them without 



CAMPING ON THE YELLOWSTONE. 1 89 

removing them from his hook. Yulee and Madeleine were both 
fond of fishing, and had many a fine catch during this expedition. 

The next day they proceeded along the western shore of the 
lake, past some curious mud volcanoes, to the Yellowstone River. 
It was one of the aims of the Government, in setting apart the Park, 
to make it a refuge for the larger wild animals, which are being 
rapidly exterminated. In some mysterious way these intelligent 
animals have learned that they are safe here. The guide said he 
had often shot elk here before the game laws were enacted, and told 
of one day when five deer had rewarded a hunt. " There was a 
gentleman made his way into the Park last winter," he said, " who 
saw a herd of a hundred and twenty elk feeding about here. He says 
that at first they were quite tame, but he gave one loud ' Whoopee ! ' 
and stampeded the whole herd. It must have been a lovely sight ; 
but I 'm afeard my old rifle would have accidentally fired itself about 
that time." The guide promised to secure them a pair of antlers, 
procured in accordance with Government regulations. They saw 
wild fowl frequently, while on the margin of the lake, and met a 
party wlio had seen buffalo. 

While descending the river, Madeleine, who was riding, managed 
to secure Mr. Hurlburt as an escort, Yulee having decided that for 
that morning she preferred the wagon with Mrs. Morse. It was easy 
to lead Mr. Hurlburt to converse about Yulee. When not talking to 
her he was continually speaking of her, and Madeleine told him that 
Yulee had desired her to tell him of her parentage, hoping that the 
knowledge would not forfeit her his friendship, since it was certainly 
no fault of hers. 

" I am aware," said Mr. Hurlburt, "that Miss Ponce is a Minor- 
can, and that the race is not highly considered in Florida, where 
they were once treated almost as slaves ; but the name Ponce is one 
of the noblest in Spanish history, and I have no doubt that we can 
trace her family back to ancestors of whom any one might be proud." 



I go 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



Madeleine was really sorry for the enthusiastic young man, for 
she knew that what she was about to say would be most painful ; but 
she went on with the calm decision of a practised surgeon. " On her 
mothers side, Yulee may descend, as you say, from some haughty 

family, but her father was an 
obscure man who took his wife's 
name because he had none of 
his own." 

" No matter how obscure, 
provided there was no crime to 
hide ; and even if that were the 
case, I am sure that no ances- 
tral taint can have descended to 
Yulee. Whatever her father 
was, she is not responsible for 
him." 

" Would you feel so if I 
were to tell you that he was an 
Indian } " 

The young man started ; evi- 
dently he had not expected this, 
and the blow was terrible. 

" Impossible ! " he exclaimed. 
" He is a Seminole, but civ- 
ilized, and in some respects a 
remarkable man." 

The shock was only moment- 
ary, and the sterling metal in 
the young mans nature now 
showed itself. " I am free to 
confess, Miss Morse," he said, "that what you tell me is a great sur- 
prise to me, and that I am sorry for it ; but I hold to what I said. 




A CASCADE IN THE YELLOWSTONE I'ARK. 



CAMPING ON THE YELLOWSTONE. igj 

Yulee cannot help it ; it is no fault of hers, and I don't mind tellino- 
you that I love her, and mean to ask lier to become my wife." 

Madeleine was both pleased and pained. She had expected to see 
him relinquish all pretensions to Yulee, and had fully prepared her- 
self to despise him. She was surprised to find him equal to the test, 
and she admired his manliness. 

" Then, Mr. Hurlburt," she said, " I have a still more painful task : 
I must tell you that there is some one else, — a noble, crand man 
who is educating Yulee in the expectation that she will marry him 
b3'-and-by, — a man who is as attracti\'e as he is generous, and who is 
in every way worthy of her." 

The whole attitude of the young man changed from that of a 
conqueror, one w-ho had overcome his baser nature and deserved the 
prize he coveted, to that of a defeated and broken man. 

He gave one great sob, which some way did not sound unmanly 
to Madeleine. " I might have known that there would be some one 
else," he said. " A girl like Yulee does n't grow up to such loveliness 
without plenty of people finding it out." Then he straightened him- 
self in his saddle and extended his hand. "I thank you," he said; 
" you 've meant to do the square thing by me, I know." 

And Madeleine, conscious that she had meant to do right, — more 
than this, sure that she had done so, — wrung the hand held toward 
her, much to the mystification of Miss Hurlburt, who just then came 
into view'. 

Others might have observed the sudden gloom which had fallen 
upon these two young people, had they not reached very shortly after 
this episode the culminating point of their tour, the object for which 
it had been made, — the Falls of the Yellowstone. There are two of 
these cascades, not more than a quarter of a mile apart. The Upper 
Falls seemed to them very beautiful, but when they reached the lower 
ones their enthusiasm knew no bounds. 

Professor Hayden, who first thoroughly explored this region, has 



192 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



}VirYv\^xix\CN^ 



best described it. He says: "No language can do justice to the 
wonderful grandeur and beauty of the caiion below the Lower F'alls. 
Standing near the margin of the Lower Falls and looking down 
the canon, which looks like an immense chasm or cleft in the basalt, 
with its sides twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet high, and deco- 
rated with the most brilliant colors that the human eye ever saw, with 

the rocks weathered into an 
unlimited variety of forms, 
with here and there a pine 
sending its roots into the 
clefts on the sides, as if strug- 
gling with a sort of uncer- 
tain success to maintain an 
existence, the whole presents 
a picture that it would be 
difficult to surpass in Nature. 
After the waters of the Yel- 
lowstone roll over the upper 
descent, they flow with great 
rapidity over the apparent- 
ly flat rocky bottom, which 
spreads out to nearly double 
its width above the Falls, and continues thus until near the Lower 
Falls, when the channel again contracts, and the waters seem, as it 
were, to gather themselves into one compact mass, and plunge over 
the descent of three hundred and fifty feet in detached drops of foam 
as white as snow; some of the large globules of water shoot down like 
the contents of an exploded rocket. It is a sight far more beautiful, 
though not so grand or impressive as that of Niagara Falls." 

It was near the Low^er Cascade that jVIadeleine gave Yulee a 
partial report of her embassy. 

" And you did tell zat I sail be Indian ? " 




J ^(r\vv\.^a 



CAMPING ON THE YELLOWSTONE. 



19. 



" Yes, Yulee ; and oh ! I was so sorry for him, for he really seemed 
devoted to you." 

" Devote, — I know not what you mean by zat. You say he haf give 
me up ? " 

" Yes, Yulee ; but he said it was no fault of yours, and I am sure it 
was a great trial to him. He loved you, Yulee, and he takes it very 
hard." 

Yulee looked incredulous, slightly scornful even. She could not 
understand the love which gave her up for no fault of hers. As for 
Madeleine, no one ever did mischief with kinder intent. She was 
inflicting pain upon friends and bringing doubt and misunderstanding 
between two loving hearts, one of whom had showed for her the 
greatest devotion, even to the risking of life itself; and all because 
she mistakenly fancied that Yulee was pledged to Captain Saunters. 
The trouble which she was bringing upon Yulee was reflected in her 
own heart. The loyalty with which she labored for what she sup- 
posed were the Captain's interests was proof of a deeper interest in 
him than she would acknowledQ:e to herself. She took a stern: 
pleasure in helping on this marriage, telling herself that the dumb* 
revolt which she sometimes felt towards it was only because Yulee 
seemed hardly to appreciate her happiness. ^ 

Their tour in the Park was now at an end. A few days more of 
rather disconsolate riding and nights of camping brought them round 
to their outfitting point. A gloom seemed to have fallen on the 
party. Miss Hurlburt instantly perceived her brother's unhappiness, 
and sprang to the conclusion that Yulee had rejected him. Indignant 
and surprised, she visited her resentment upon the unhappy girl by 
a distant and freezing manner, very different from the sisterly effusion 
with which she had hitherto deluged her. Madeleine was troubled 
and silent. Cleopatra felt the fall in the social thermometer without 
knowing the cause, and did her best — as during her father's depres- 
sion — by quips and pranks to keep up the spirits of the party. 

13 



194 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



" You are a real life-preserver, Pat, clear," Madeleine said ; " without 
you we would sink in the Dead Sea of Despair." 




^A 






IN THE GRAND CANON. 



" A merry heart doeth good like a medicine," quoted Mrs. Morse. 
Cleopatra applied herself to the entertainment of Mr. Hurlburt, 



CAMPING OX THE YELLOIVSTOXE. ig^ 

speaking of the temperance movement among the Black Hawk 
miners, in which she knew he was interested ; but that young man 
was too deeply hurt to converse at all. He left Cleopatra abruptly, 
when she was in the midst of an account of how^ she had carried the 
pledge through her fathers command, and had started a temperance 
society which had accomplished much good. 

" Excuse me to your friend," he said to Madeleine later, " but I do 
not feel as if I could ever talk to a w^oman again. It is well that our 
trip is over, and that we part to-morrow at Ogden, and that mv sister 
and I return to Colorado. I cannot bear to be with you any longer." 

His leave-taking from Yulee w^as of the most commonplace order. 
How could it be otherwise, as they stood in the station before the 
entire party ? 

" I wish you a pleasant trip," he said, with a tragic and desperate 
expression of countenance. 

Yulee's lip cjuivered. " I haf much, to sank you for ze flowers of 
Colorado," she said with dignity. 

Then Miss Hurlburt grasped her brother's arm, saying, " Edward, 
we shall lose the train ; " and they were gone. 

Cleopatra looked on, much amused, and remarked to Madeleine : — 

" ' I remember the day that we met. 
The way and the day that we parted ; 
You vowed you could ne\'er forget, 
And 1 feared we were both broken-hearted," 

And I presume to say it will end in the same way, — they will have 
forgotten each other's names in less than ten 3^ears from now." 

" I hope so," Madeleine replied dubiously; "but no, Pat, I 'm afraid 
that Mr. Hurlburt at least is verv much in earnest." 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA. 




IND now they rattled on over the Central Pacific Rail- 
road through Nevada to California, which they found, 
in contrast to the frosty nights on the Yellowstone^ 
verified its Spanish name of " hot furnace." They 
spent several days in San Francisco, visiting the 
Golden Gate Park, the Cliff House and Seal Rocks, 
Oakland, the Chinese quarter, and other points of interest, and then 
whisked away to the Yosemite, which they explored in connection 
with the Mariposa great trees. 

The party spent the night at Clark's Ranch, and on the following 
morning rode to the Mariposa groves, a distance of only four miles. 
In the upper grove seven Sequoia gigantea were pointed out as having 
a circumference of over eisrhtv feet. The largest tree in the lower 
grove is Grizzly Giant, which has a girth of ninety-three feet. 

The next day they started by stage for the Yosemite Valley. It 
would take too long to describe in detail their wanderings here, as no 
incident bearing particularly on the future of the three girls, which 
was being decided by this trip, occurred in this beautiful spot. The 
view which Cleopatra decided to be her favorite one was that of the 
Sentinel, — a mountain of granite, of which it has been said, " Sentinel 
Rock combines more of picturesqueness and grandeur, perhaps, than 
any other rock-mass in the valley, its obelisk-like top reaching a 



CALIFORXIA AND ARIZONA. 



199 



height of over three thousand feet, the face wall being almost 
vertical." 

The Grand Cascade was not at its best, for the heat of summer 
had dwindled its fair propor- 
tions, and it is grandest in the 
spring when the snows begin to 
melt. " At such times the Yo- 
semite Fall is described as grand 
beyond all power of expres- 
sion. The summit of the upper 
fall is a little over twenty-six 
hundred feet above the valley ; 
for fifteen hundred feet the de- 
scent is absolutely vertical and 
the rock is like a wall of ma- 
sonry. Before this the fall of 
water sways and sweeps, yield- 
ing to the force of the fitful 
wind with a marvellous grace 
and endless variety of motion. 
For a moment it descends with 
continuous roar; in another in- 
stant it is caught, and, revers- 
ing its flight, rises upward in 
wreathing eddying mists, finally 
fading out like a summer cloud." 

Yulee's favorite spot was tranquil Mirror Lake, which so marvel- 
lously repeats its surrounding scenery, — the foliage, the mountains, 
the very clouds, — all so perfectly reflected that, as Yulee expressed it, 
" It is as if you sail float between two worlds." 

Mr. James D. Smillie, of New York, famous as an artist and etcher, 
has exquisitely illustrated this charming spot. Madeleine was familiar 




ONE OF THE BIG TREES. 



200 THREE J'ASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

with his pictures, and again and again exclaimed with delight as some 
new scene seemed like an old friend through their interpretation. 
" His name ought to be as closely connected with the Yosemite as 
Thomas Moran's is with the Yellowstone," she said, as they stood 
before the tremulous beauty of the Bridal Veil. 

" I always connect Bierstadt with the Yosemite," said the Major. 

"He is best known," replied Madeleine; "and it is a delightful 
thing that so many of our American artists have been made famous by 
American scenes. Surely there is enough that is picturesque in this 
glorious continent to occupy our artists at home. What are castles 
and stupid peasants to this } " 

Cleopatra smiled as she thought how her friend's opinion had 
changed since a certain day at Vassar; but she forebore one of a 
w^oman's dearest delights, — that of saying, "I told you so." 

They reached Los Angeles, the City of the Angels, at the height 
of the fruit season. Never before had they seen such a profusion 
of grapes, like Aladdin's gem fruit, — from the purple Mission to the 
topaz Muscat and pale Malaga, — such huge pears, peaches which 
did not have a flan nelly taste, and such immense watermelons burst- 
ing with their own crumpy lusciousness. Los Angeles is now a city 
of fifty thousand inhabitants, with lovely suburban residences ap- 
proached by avenues of palm and surrounded with orange-groves. 
They made a brief excursion to Sant# Monica, its little watering-place 
on the Pacific, where they indulged in the luxury of surf-bathing, and 
saw heliotropes ten feet high and scarlet geraniums clambering to 
second-story windows. 

It was hard to bid farewell to such a paradise ; but it was tiine now 
to turn their faces eastward, and they were soon whizzing over the 
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad through Arizona, which Cleopatra was 
sure was so named because it is an arid zone, ah ! But here, as every- 
where else, there were signs of enterprise and progress. While dining 
at one of the stations, where they were served with every luxury of 




TRANQUIL MIRROR LAKE. 



CALIFORXIA AND ARIZONA. 



20' 



an Eastern hotel, the Major remarked, " I can remember the time when 
the only 'hotel' in this place was kept by a Hibernian landlady 
who might have been the original of 
Cooper's — 

' Good Mother Flanagan, 

Come fill the can again ; ^ 

For you can fill, and we can swill, 
Good Mother Flanagan ! ' 



Only half of the description would ap- 
ply to her, however; for though she 
could fill, the veriest toper would have 
found it hard to swallow the vile mix- 
ture which she dispensed." 

The younger and more adventu- 
rous spirits were anxious to stop at 
Peach Springs and visit the Grand 
Caiion of the Colorado ; but Mrs. Morse 
was a little weary, and it was feared 
that the journey might be too fatig- 
uing; for her. 

" I am sure we have seen caiions 
enough dears," she said, feebly, " and it can't be finer than the Canon 
of the Yellowstone." 

" Listen to what the guide-book says," replied Madeleine. " There 
are Americans who saw Rome before they saw Niagara, who saw 
Mont Blanc before they saw the Yosemite, and who saw the Alps 
and the Pyrenees before they saw the Rockies and the Sierras. Let 
them have seen all these, with the Urals, the Andes, and the Hima- 
layas thrown in ; let them have seen the boiling geyser of Iceland 
and the belchinor craters of /Etna and Chin^borazo ; let them have 
looked upon the wonders of the Yellowstone and listened to the roar 
of Niagara; let them have traversed all the rest of the world, and 
until they have seen the Grand Canon of the Colorado, the world's 




" MOTHER FLANAGAN'. 



204 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



greatest wonder yet awaits them. Imagine a zigzag canon three 
hundred miles long, perpendicular walls on either side of the river, 

five thousand to six- 
thousand feet in the 
air. Think of it ! 
More than a mile of 
rock towering above 
you ! 

Mrs. Morse looked 
frightened. " I would 
rather not think of 
it, Madeleine dear ; 
and as for anything 
under heaven resem- 
bling all those dif- 
ferent places at once, 
I cannot conceive of 
it." 

M a d e 1 e i n e pa- 
tiently explained that 
the caiion was not 
asserted to resemble, 
but to surpass in 
orrandeur, all these 
localities ; but Mrs. 
Morse was not at- 
tracted. She was 
better pleased with the desire of Major Atchison to stop at Fort 
Wingate and visit some old army friends, for she had an admiration 
for everything of a military nature. 

Cleopatra was now in her element. Her spirits rose the moment 
she cauo^ht siQ:ht of the ambulances waiting^ for them at the station, 




GKAXD CANOX, LOOKING EAST. 



CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA. 205 

and it needed strong self-control to keep her from embracing the 
orderly who saluted so respectfully. 

At Fort Wingate Cleopatra met a number of ladies whom she had 
known ; and the party were most hospitably entertained, as is always 
the case among army people. As the girls strolled out upon one of 
the pleasant verandas that evening, they caught each other's hands in 
pleased surprise. A well-built soldierly figure was crossing the parade- 
ground. " Of all persons in the world, — Captain Saunters ! " 

The Captain was as much surprised as they, and apparently ten 
times more pleased. 

Explanations followed on both sides. 

" To think of vour beins^ stationed at Wins^ate ! " exclaimed 
Cleopatra. 

" But I am not stationed here, only passing through." 

" Is there trouble with the White Mountain Apaches .^ " 

" No. I told you that I had been ordered West, but did not explain 
in what capacity. I have been detailed to assist Captain Pratt at the 
Government Training School for Indians at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 
and have been sent West to collect pupils." 

There were some Zuni Indians of a most unintellectual aspect 
hanging about the post. Madeleine was particularly disgusted by 
their lanky matted locks and uncleanly appearance. " I do not think 
the Indians here as interesting as the prisoners we saw at Florida," 
she said. 

" These are Pueblos," Captain Saunters replied ; " and when you 
have seen more of them, I think you will confess that in spite of 
many repulsive features they are interesting. To-morrow I start by 
ambulance for Fort Defiance in the Navajo Reservation. Would 
you like to accompany the expedition } " 

Cleopatra and Madeleine thought they would like it very much. 
So did the Major ; but Mrs. Morse preferred to rest in her present 
comfortable quarters, and Yulee decided that she would rather remain 



?c6 



THREE WISSAR u I RI.S AT 1 lOM E. 




A Zl'M INDIAN. 



wiih Ikt. The Captain, to Madeleine's surprise, made no ciToit to 
induce her to ehan^j,e lier decision. " Sonie lox'cr's (juarrel," tlu)ut;lit 
Madeleine; and she remonstrated with \'ulee privately that nit;ht. 
"I no like to see wild hulian," she saitl ; "/at way I something- 
like Mr. Ilurlhurt." 

It was the lirst time thai the L;irl had nientioned 
his name, and she bluslu'd as she did so, Made- 
leine was incensed. " Yulee," she said, " 1 do think 
that vou treat Captain Saunters very shabbily, and 
1 am cpiite \exed with you." 

The girl's great pupils dilated with wonder, 
"It is nossing to Captain Saunters how J do treat 
him," she said. 

" Nothing ? Do you mean to say that )ou are 
not engaged to be mari-ied to him after \our gradu- 
ation at X'assar } " 
Yulce laughed merrily. " Zat cannot be for two reason," she said; 
" for first 1 do not lofe hini, and for twice he haf not ask me." 

The ground seemed to swim beneath Madeleine; she walked away 
in a dazed condition. If Yulee and the Captain were not betrothed, 
there was no reason why Mr. liurlburt should be unhappy. What 
had she done? It was late, and they were to start on their all-da)-'s 
ambulance drive at dawn the next morning; but she sat up late to 
write a long letter to Mr. Hurlburt, explaining the misapprehension 
under which she had labored. " I may die on the trip," she said, 
when Cleopatra called to her sleepily to jnit off her letter-writing 
until their return from Defiance. Her new motto, "The most im- 
]3ortant duties first," was ringing in her ears, and to right this wrong 
was surely most important. 

Sleepy, but with an appeased conscience, she roused lierself the 
next morning for the jaunt across the wild ])rairie. Their ambulance 
was drawn bv four stout mules, and another team bi'ought equi])age 




THE NEVADA FALL IN THE VOSEMITE. 



CALIFORXIA AND ARIZONA. 200 

and escort. It was a ride across a rolling prairie, gullied with numer- 
ous " aroyas," or gulches, treeless except for the scattered clumps of 
pinyon-trees, with only a prairie-dog town, or some strange flower like 
the yucca or Mexican soap-plant to relieve the monotony of the scene. 
Near VVingate, however, they had seen that strange rocky pinnacle 
called the Navajo Church ; and if there had been nothing but the 
flat prairie, they would have enjoyed it for its very contrast to the 
canons. They were mountain-tired. Their eyes as well as feet 
had had enough of climbing for the present ; and the vast, sweeping, 
horizontal lines were restfully suggestive of plenty of room in which 
to lie down. 

Fort Defiance they found a lonely outpost in the great Navajo 
reservation. The office of the agent, the store of the trader, a fe\r 
houses belonging to the surgeon and other Government officials, and 
a school made up the sum total of the settlement. 

Scattered about on the mesa in the vicinity were a few " hoo-ans," 
or huts, of the Navajos, which showed commendable efforts on the- 
part of the Indians toward living a civilized life. In one of them: 
they saw a woman patiently working a worn-out sewing-machine.. 
In a little arbor connected with another was a cooking-stove, and 
the owner had just taken out a pan of nice-looking biscuit. In 
several were looms upon which the occupants were weaving the 
beautiful blankets for which this nation is celebrated. The tribe 
raise vast flocks of sheep, and from their wool manufacture blankets 
so closely woven that they will hold water, and gayly striped and 
checkered in brilliant colors. They are of various sizes, from a 
saddle-cloth to a carpet; and Madeleine bought two for portieres. 

The Navajos are silversmiths also, and are peaceable, self-support- 
ing Indians, not depending on the Government for rations, but farming 
their poor lands in many instances, and raising stock where the soil 
is only capable of grazing purposes. 

The Navajo children are docile and bright, and anxious to array 

:4 



2IO 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



themselves in the white man's clothes, whenever they can obtain 
them. One fond mother had bartered a blanket which it had taken 
her several months to weave for a second-hand vest, a battered stove- 
pipe hat, and a few cotton shirts for her eldest son, rather curiousl}- 

%^ . 




^^-^^^.v,,..^ 



MADELEINE AND " HE-WANTS-TO-KNOW."' 



named " He-wants-to-know." He had attended school during one 
winter ; and Madeleine presented him with a new geography which 
the teacher said he was anxious to obtain, and which was filled with 
pictures of the white man's inventions, of towns and railroads and farm- 
ing implements, all strange and stimulating to his inquisitive mind. 



CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA. 211 

His expression for a steamboat was a long compound word of his own 
invention, made up in the following ingenious way : A wagon with 
him was a " wooden-horse," a locomotive an " iron-wooden-horse ; " a 
steamboat he called a " water-iron-wooden-horse." His diminutives 
were equally amusing. He called a wheel-barrow " a son-of-a-wagon," 
a hatchet " the son-of-an-axe," and a pistol " the son-of-a-gun." 

The teachers at the school said that the children were shy, but 
when once induced to attend school made remarkable progress. 

The Captain completed his arrangements for the transfer of a 
number of pupils to the Training School, and the party returned on 
the following day to Wingate. 

" The Government ought to compel the attendance of all Indian 
children on the schools provided," said the Major, " and the Indian 
problem would then be solved." 

" Ah, that is the trouble!" said the Captain, with a sigh. "The 
Government has always managed the problem in a half-hearted way, 
which shows that it has no desire to solve it." 

" Then it is left to individual effort," exclaimed Madeleine ; " and 
it seems to me that all great enterprises have been accomplished in 
that way. I, for one, have made up my mind that in some way I shall 
devote my life to this great cause of Indian education." 

Captain Saunters looked up ; a swift, glad light spreading over his 
face. They were in the swaying, jolting ambulance. The Major, 
who sat beside the Captain, saw nothing; but both of the girls under- 
stood the look. It said as plainly as words could have done, " I have 
wondered how you would regard this change in my career, — from 
a soldiers to a teacher's life; and if you will only share it, no man 
upon God s earth will be more blessed than I." 

Madeleine understood it, and thought to herself, " My dream was 
true ; he cares for me, has cared for me all along, and not for Yulee." 

And then she thought how differently she would have felt if Yulee 
had not cleared her mental spectacles the night before. " I should 



2 12 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

have thought him a contemptible flirt, a man who could not help 
making love to every girl he saw; and now — " 

Cleopatra, looking from one to the other, thought with amused 
dismay, " He is going to propose, and she will accept him right here 
before us all;" and she rattled away, telling her merriest stories, 
furbishing up old puns and conundrums and inventing new ones, to 
avert so dire a calamity. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE PUEBLOS. 




REAVING Fort Wingate, the party next visited some of 
the Pueblo Indians. The word " pueblo " signifies 
" town ; " and these Indians are so called because they 
build houses sometimes three stories high and shaped 
like terraces oi' a flight of steps, the roof of one house 
serving as front yard or veranda for the one above. These towns are 
very -old. The early Franciscan missionaries found them, in 1583, 
looking just as they do now. They found the people partly civilized, 
practising the useful arts in a rude way, making several kinds of 
pottery, weaving, using wagons and farming implements, working in 
metals, constructing buildings and cisterns and ovens, and with a 
system of government and laws which proved them far advanced 
beyond the roving tribes of the plains ; and all this before the Pil- 
grims landed on Plymouth Rock. There are .nineteen of these towns. 
An account of these early discoveries of the Spaniards was printed in 
Madrid in 1586. 

The ancient chronicler quaintly tells how the Franciscan, moved 
by a zeal for souls, made his first unsuccessful expedition into the 
new country, which he was obliged to abandon on account of the 
cowardice of his escort ; and how, two years later, Antonio de Espeja, 
a wealthy gentleman from Cordova, invested a large part of his fortune 
in the fitting out of a stronger party, which successfully accomplished 
the exploration of New Mexico. Much that is written of this visit 



2l6 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

in 1583 is true to-day. In the old history the puclDlo of Zuni is 
described to the hfe, the Moqui villages can be recognized, and the 
Rio Grande pueblos can be traced from Acoma, on the west of the 
river, to Taos in the north, not far from the Colorado line. 

The party found the Indians as hospitable, as simple in their 
habits, as ignorant of the outside world, as contented, and as inoffen- 
sive as Espeja found them. It is possible that they were more keenly 
struck by the picturesqueness and a certain foreignness than were the 
old Spaniards ; for the adobe houses resembled those of the Moors, 
with which the explorers must have been familiar, and the narrow 
streets, with their unchristian odors, bear a striking resemblance to 
the towns of Morocco at the present day. 

Our friends halted first at Laguna; and the Captain had arranged 
to reach the town on the annual feast-day, which is celebrated by 
a harvest dance. The Pueblos^ have been Catholics ever since the 
coming of the Spaniards. An adobe church was the most striking 
of the buildings at Laguna ; and stepping inside, the girls were shown 
an altar-piece painted upon skins, and brought many years before 
from Mexico. The ceremonies of the day were partly religious, the 
priest with his Indian altar-boys heading the procession and bearing 
the sacred images and banners from the church to an arbor con- 
structed of corn-stalks, where the feast w^as held. As the day was 
the festival of Saint Joseph, an image of that saint was given the place 
of honor; his spouse, Maria Sanctissima, taking a more humble place. 
Upon the ground fruit and bread were piled, and the aged and hon- 
ored members of the tribe took seats along the sides of the arbor. 
Then the people swarmed in ; and the feast, a humble one, took place. 

After the feast came the dance, which in this instance resembles an 
old-fashioned Virginia Reel, — with this important difference, that the 
woman must always keep her face to the back of her partner, the man. 

' The word " Pueblo," as explained on the preceding page, is applied either to the towns 
or to the Indians themselves. 



THE PUEBLOS. 



219 



One prominent feature of the day was the review of a mounted 
company of troops formed of Pueblo Indians, commanded by a white 
settler who has enlisted them into the United States service, and has 
drilled them with great zeal and patience. Twelve such companies 
of militia have been formed in New Mexico. The advance which this 
pueblo shows over some of the others is doubtless owing to the fact 
of the presence among them of American missionaries, — teachers and 
leaders, who have devoted themselves to their improvement. The 
gradual change of character in the ceremonies of their feast-day, the 
substitution of military evolutions for the war dance, pure and simple, 
and the absence of the old fetiches, show the progress of the people. 
In Zuni, instead of the Roman Catholic emblems, the sacred animals 
of the old zootheistic mythology (or beast-gods) are brought forward 
and receive the honors of the festival days. 

The Major described a Rain Dance of the Zuiiis, which he had seen. 
" Six mud images," said he, — "representing, as 
they told me, two bears, a deer, two rabbits, 
and a wolf, though I could hardly tell which 
was which, — were placed by a set of painted 
rascals in the centre of the plaza. Then the 
rest of the tribe danced around them, sprink- 
ling them with prayer-meal until some hood- 
lums in masks rushed forward and shot the 
images. Then the painted fellows, who it 
seems were big medicine men, took up the 
pieces of the images and made a great howl- 
ing over them, and the thing was over. 
They said they were dancing to make rain, 
but I could n't see any rhyme or reason in 
the ceremonies." 

" Speaking of dances," said the Captain, " the Moquis have a very 
disaorreeable Snake Dance, which I once saw at the village of Wolpi- 




THE MAJOR. 



2 20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME 

This town is situated on a high cliff. For four clays before the carni- 
val the Indians occupied themselves in catching rattlesnakes. Some 
two hundred of these were collected and wrapped in withes and 
buffalo hide. The dance took place on the i8th of August, on the 
edge of the cliff. The dancers were painted grotesquely, and from 
the writhing, hydra-headed mass each, as he passed, was handed a ser- 
pent, which he seized in the middle with his teeth ; and for half an 
hour the company danced in a circle, the snakes waving about their 
faces and seemingly about to bury thei;* fangs in their throats, 
while the ground at their feet swarmed with other serpents. At the 
conclusion of this hideous orgy, the snakes were all gathered up by 
the dancers, who dashed at full speed down the precipitous rocks, and 
separating into four bands bounded away over the prairie toward the 
four points of the compass. When nearly out of sight, they set free 
the serpents, and returning disappeared into the estufa, or under- 
ground council-chamber. Apparently no one was harmed by the 
reptiles, whose bite is usually so dangerous. Tlie meaning of this 
dance has not been explained." 

At Laguna, through the kindness of the Governor of the pueblo, 
the party obtained conveyances, and drove over to the Indian town of 
Acoma, doubtless the most interesting and picturesque of all the 
pueblos. Like Wolpi, it is situated on a rocky cliff which rises 
abruptly from the plain. The children came running out to meet 
them, and guided them up the rocky defile, which was the only 
entrance to the citadel. The Governor made them a speech of wel- 
come, and conducted them to the vacant cloisters of the little monastery, 
or mission-house connected with the church, explaining by expressive 
o-cstures that this was at their service so long as they cared to remain. 
Then he despatched a fleet courier fifteen miles for an interpreter, 
that he might learn the business of his guests. But before the arrival 
of the interpreter the hospitable people spread a table with all that it 
was in their power to offer, — jerked beef stewed with onions and 



THE PUEBLOS. 22'^ 

plentifully seasoned with Chili or red pepper, bread baked in their 
mud ovens sprinkled with salt from a salt lake, eggs, black coffee, 
melons, and luscious peaches. Our travellers were hunorv and 
despite the absence of napery and finger-bowls, they made a good 
meal. After supper they strolled about the town, and examined the 
great cisterns, and the cainpo santo, or burial-ground, made on the face 
of the bare rock by bringing up the earth from the plain below in 
baskets. They saw the ponies and donkeys driven from their pastures 
up the rocky staircase and corralled for the night ; and as the stars 
came out and they overlooked the town from the priest's balcony, the 
Captain read from his note-book a part of the relation of the friar 
Augustin Ryz, of which we have already spoken : — 

" They found a great towne called Acoma, conteining above five thousand 
persons, situate upon an high rocke. The chief men of this towne came peace- 
ably to visit the Spaniards, bringing them great plenty of victuals. Our men 
remained in this place three days, upon one of which the inhabitants made 
before them a very solemne dance, — using very witty sports wherewith our 
men were exceedingly delighted." 

" Why, it seems exactly as if it were written of them to-day," 
exclaimed Madeleine. 

" And to think," added Cleopatra, " that in all these years they 
have not outlived their childlike trustfulness, and receive us in 
the same hospitable manner, although they do not know our 
errand." 

When the interpreter arrived, and the people understood that the 
party represented the Carlisle School, they were delighted. Many 
of them had relatives there; they crowded around to see the photo- 
graphs of the buildings and of the pupils, picking out their friends, 
and testified their pleasure in every possible manner. They were 
eager to send more ; and before the Captain had made the rounds of 
the pueblos, more children desirous of being taken had collected than 
could be received under the rules of the institution. 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 



As the party were about leaving Acoma, Madeleine exclaimed,- 
" I must have a flower from the cloister garden to press as a sou- 
venir;"' and she ran back to the neglected little patio, which had 
once blossomed so profusely under the tillage of the Francis- 
can Fathers. A yucca shot up a 
fountain-like spray in the cen- 
tre of the court, and Madeleine 
plucked a blossom. As she did 
so, a young woman came in and 
threw her arms around her, em- 

bracinsf her with o;reat tender- 
er o 

ness and at the same time with 
great respect. The Captain fol- 
lowed her. " What does she 
say 1 " asked Madeleine, for the 
girl was talking excitedly. 

" She apparently thinks," re- 
plied the Captain, " that you are 
one of the teachers at the Train- 
ing School, and is thanking you 
for all you have done." 

" I accept her thanks in ad- 
vance," said Madeleine, " for what 
I mean to do. See, I have plucked 
a yucca-blossom, such as they 
use to cleanse their blankets 

with. It shall be for me the emblem of cleansing. Do you know 

that beautiful Spanish song, — 

' I '11 weary myself by night and by day 
To aid my unfortunate brothers, 
As the laundress tans her own face in the ray 
To cleanse the {rarments of others ' ? " 




THE INTERPRETER. 



THE PUEBLOS. 



225 



And the Captain — Well, no, we will not tell what he said ; but 
as they came out of the cloister garden into the cool quiet church, 
they paused before the altar, where a single light was burning, and 
holding each other's hands pledged themselves, as they afterward 
repeated the vow in another sanctuary, " each to the other and both 
to God." 



15 



CHAPTER XVI. 



TAKEN PRISONER. 




HERE is little more to tell. — only an episode which 
happened at the pueblo of Taos. 

They had gone thither on the 30th of September 
to witness the festival of -San Geronimo, which is 
* celebrated here with races and old pagan ceremo- 
nies, mingled with the rites of the Roman Catholic 
Church. It was their last stop, and it rounded up 
the circle of their Western tour ; for Taos is not far 
from Colorado Springs, where tliey may be said to 
have beeun their Western wanderincrs. It lies away from the railroad, 
is difificult of access to travellers, and the fete has been witnessed by 
few tourists. 

The old Mexican town of Fernandez de Taos is situated about 
two miles from the Indian pueblo. The town has the appearance 
of a citadel, and has so figured in history; for the warriors of 
Taos are noted among the pueblos for their bravery, and for a cer- 
tain rash espousal of the under side in a fight, never knowing when 
they are beaten.' but sustaining sieges and winning battles after the 
general surrender. It was here that Pope originated the rebellion 
and drove the Spaniards from the country in 16S0, sending about to 
the other Indians a rope containing as many knots as there were 
pueblos. Each pueblo that joined the revolt untied a knot, and when 



TAKEN PRISONER. 



'21 



the rope was returned the number of insurgent towns was known. 
All rose except the little pueblo of St. Juan, which was rechristened by 
the Spaniards on their return, in 1693, St. Juan de los Caballeros. 

"In 1848," said the Major, "Taos, which had led the rebellion 
against the Mexicans in former days, was the only pueblo that sided 




ANCIENT PUEBLO RESTORED. 



with them in their ineffectual strusrsfle with the United States. Led 
by the warrior Tomas, it sustained a two days' artillery siege, the 
howitzers playing without effect on the thick walls of the adobe 
church. I was a lieutenant under General Cooke, who led this 



2 28 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

assault. I have often heard him speak of the soldierly qualities of 
these Indians with enthusiasm, and he told me that seven years later 
he raised here in a day a company to serve against the Apaches, and 
his expression was, ' Efficient fine fellows they were ! ' " Kit Carson, 
the famous pioneer and Indian fighter, is buried at Fernandez de 
Taos ; and the party stopped here to visit his grave. This delay had 
a rather curious effect. 

It so happened that news of their coming reached Taos, handed 
from the Indians of one pueblo to another, before their own arrival. 
Now, this is one of the most conservative of the pueblos. Their old 
civilization these Indians consider good enough for them; and they 
cling more tenaciously than any others, unless it be the Zunis, to the 
old pagan legends, and especially to the beautiful one of Monte- 
zuma, their hero god. Long, long ago, Montezuma, so the legend 
runs, left his children to journey toward the east, leaving them word 
to kindle beacon-fires at sunrise, for at that hour some morning he 
would return. It is said that among these northern pueblos the fires 
are still kindled, and the chiefs watch at sunrise for the return of 
Montezuma. One of the Taos chief men who had long pondered 
over this promise of the return of Montezuma, hearing that a man 
was coming who desired to educate and benefit the pueblo children, 
became impressed with the idea that this was possibly Montezuma. 
His associates scoffed at the notion; but from constantly brooding 
upon it the poor old man became more and more eager, and anxious 
lest Taos should be passed by. He was fiscal of police, and he sent 
a body-guard of stout young warriors out on the road by which he 
expected the celestial visitant, to intercept him and bring him perforce 
to the city. 

When, a day or two before the festival, the party reached Taos, 
the very first person whom they met on entering the town proved 
to be an old friend. Madeleine uttered a little scream of delighted 
surprise, and Yulee turned first pale and then rosy; for there, with 



TAKEN PRISONER. 



229 



knapsack and staff, talking with the aged fiscal, was Mr. Hurlburt 
He hurried forward to meet them, his first impulse of happiness 
carrying him beyond the feeling of restraint which the sight of Yulee 
would have caused had he given himself 
time to think. 

" I have had the strangest experience," 
he exclaimed. " I have been prospecting 
in the mountains. You see, after our 
outing in the Yellowstone, I did not feel 
like cooping myself up in an office, and 
I had heard of some turquoise and silver 
mines in this vicinity that were worked 
by the old Spaniards. I had been rough- 
ing it with two companions ; but discour- 
aged by our poor success they left me, 
and I decided to give up the search and 
make for some point on the Denver and 
Rio Grande Railroad. When a short dis- 
tance from this place, I was met by a 

mounted party of Indians, surrounded and brought a prisoner into 
Taos. As I was single-handed, I thought best from the first not 
to show fight ; but I assure you I was frightened. I said to myself, 
' If Miss Morse could see me now, she might change her opinion of 
the Indians.' I expected nothing less than death, and perhaps tor- 
ture, and concluded I was to be served up to grace the games of 
their festal day, which I knew was approaching. What was my 
astonishment, on my arrival here, at being greeted in a cordial man- 
ner by this venerable party, who explained through an interpreter that 
he had heard of my kind thoughts and feelings toward Indians, and 
desired to do me honor." 

Cleopatra laughed. "You must have thought that he was in- 
dulging in mild satire," she said. 




MR. HURLBURT AS A PROSPECTOR. 



230 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

" So I did, until others of the Indians explained that the fame 
of the Government schools at Carlisle and Hampton had reached 
them, and that I was supposed to be in some way connected with 
them, and they wished to share in the benefits of these admirable 
institutions. If I was surprised before, I was thunderstruck now. I 
never had heard of Indians wishing to share in anything connected 
with civilization, with the exception of whiskey, and it seemed to 
me that cither I or they had gone crazy. I still believe that the 
old gentleman here is a little shaky in his mind, for he evidently 
thinks that Captain Pratt is Montezuma come again ; but the rest of 
the community seem to be level-headed, except in the notion that the 
Government cares enough for them to send any one to look after their 
children." 

" They are correct in that idea, my friend," replied the Major. 
" Allow me to introduce Captain Saunters, who is here on this very 
errand, and for whom you were mistaken." 

Mr. Hurlburt and the Captain greeted each other cordially, and 
some kindly but earnest chat followed on the question of Indian 
education. " I have gained a new respect for Indians," said Mr. 
Hurlburt; "and my prejudice has been based on this fact, that in 
some tribes missionaries have been working for years without any 
adequate result, and I have known of one or two instances where 
Indian boys educated in the East, after they returned to their tribes, 
went back to a wild way of living." 

" That is the mistake we make," replied the Captain, warmly. 
"We educate one Indian out of a thousand, and demand that he 
civilize his tribe single-handed, with all the overpowering weight of 
barbaric surroundings against him. The Government should com- 
pel the education of all these wild wards, and then allow them to 
become absorbed, scattered among our people, their tribe forgotten, 
swallowed up in the great American nation. We have been acting 
on the plan of isolating one missionary among a thousand Indians ; 



TAKEN PRISONER. 



2^1 



we must isolate each Indian among a thousand missionaries, and then 
we may hope for success." 

The party found the festival most interesting. The morning 
witnessed every available roof covered with a swarm of gayly blank- 
eted spectators, who had come in from all the country round to 
witness the sports. Fruit-venders at little stalls, and panier-laden 
donkeys added bright spots of color. Pony and foot races, and a 
service in the church filled the mornino^. The afternoon was oiven 
up to dances. In one, the Cold Weather Dance, the men were dressed 






/ -d 




WATCHING A PUEBLO DAN'CE. 



to represent great poverty. Their hats were horned and tasselled 
with corn-husks ; and other allusions were made to the har\'est season, 
and their needs for the approaching winter. Some went through the 
motions of cutting wood; others sawed and threw it into piles. The 
women, wearing each two blankets to represent the severity of the 



232 THREE VASSAR GIRLS AT HOME. 

weather, followed, and enacted the picking up of the wood ; and the 
dance ended about an imaginary fire. 

It was while looking on at this dance that Madeleine asked Mr. 
Hurlburt if he had received her letter from Wingate, and learning 
that he had not, told him of her great mistake in regard to Yulee. 

" I will forgive you," said the young man, " if she will forgive 
me, and if you will help me to persuade her to become a miners 
wife." 

No great persuasion was necessary, for Yulee's heart had long 
been given ; and when she learned that her birth had nothing to do 
with her lover's estrangement, her wounded pride was soothed and 
all was happily settled. Yulee's only stipulation was that she should 
finish her scientific course at Vassar, and teach botany long enough to 
pay her indebtedness to her friends before her marriage. 

It was in vain that Mr. Hurlburt desired to assume that indebted- 
ness. Yulee, for once, was obstinate. She wanted her education, but 
not enough to sacrifice to it her womanly independence ; and Mr. 
Hurlburt was forced very unwillingly to acquiesce. 

It was time now for the girls to return to college. Their long 
tour together over thousands of miles of railroad was over. The inti- 
macy of travel in comfortable and in trying situations had not caused 
them to weary of each other or brought out selfish or unlovely traits. 
Inconveniences had been laughed over, heat and weariness had been 
ignored, the jar of the rails had waked no answering thrill in quiv- 
ering nerves, and good nature had been the buffer in every mental 
collision. That they were glad to return to Vassar was only a proof, 
as Cleopatra said, not that they loved railroading less, but that they 
loved tlicir college more. 

After passing her examinations it was discovered that Yulee's profi- 
ciency in botany was such that she could act as assistant in that de- 
partment, and so pay her own expenses. Madeleine would have been 
disappointed but for Yulee's evident delight, and for the knowledge 



TAKEN PRISONER. ^ ^ ^ 

that this would shorten the engagement which had seemed so lono- to 
Mr. Hurlburt. 

Aunt Pen, on hearing of Madeleine's betrothal to Captain Saunters, 
took all the credit to herself for having brought it about, and busied 
herself with great interest in preparing the trousseau. It was arrano;ed 
that the double wedding should occur at Madeleine's home. Shv 
Raphael Ponce and his stately wife would be present. Cleopatra was 
to be bridesmaid ; and after that would begin the true life of Three 
Vassar Girls at Home. 




University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



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